Overview

• Front-line units are deploying tracked and wheeled robots to deliver supplies, clear mines, and retrieve the wounded or dead from areas too dangerous for soldiers.
• Operators frequently pair the vehicles with reconnaissance drones that scout routes and provide the machines’ “eyes” when onboard cameras are absent.
• Most systems are made by Ukrainian companies and range from roughly $1,000 to about $64,000, with some platoons citing average purchases near 400,000 hryvnias.
• Slow speed and exposure over open ground make the robots easy targets, which limits evacuation missions and drives costly attrition.
• Crews are adapting in the field by hardening controls against electronic warfare and adding welded cages and mine rollers, and analysts say the scale of use could spur further advances.