By Tom Balmforth
KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine will need tens of thousands of unmanned robotic ground vehicles next year to carry ammunition and supplies to infantry in trenches and evacuate wounded soldiers, a senior government minister told Reuters.
The cart-like vehicles, an example of how technology is transforming trench warfare in Ukraine, would spare troops from operating in areas close to the front where Russian shelling and drones are frequent, Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said.
“This year we bought several thousand land platforms, and next year, I believe, we need tens of thousands,” said the minister, who oversaw the procurement of drones for most of the war, in an interview.
The vehicles, he said, are already being used along the front and in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kiev troops created an enclave in the breakthrough in August. Ukraine has several training centers where they are taught how to use them, he added.
The use of military technology has developed rapidly, even as the war has been mired in bloody, exhausting combat with no major changes on the battlefield despite Russia’s recent accelerated gains 33 months since the 2022 invasion.
Fedorov, whose official remit is digital issues, has played a prominent role in supporting the development of military technology through a government-backed platform to nurture private sector innovation. As of this month, it no longer supervises the procurement of drones.
Ukraine has focused heavily on ramping up production and improving the specifications of long-range attack drones to carry out deep strikes against Russia, narrowing the capability gap with its adversary.
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Ukraine’s production of long-range drones has increased dozens of times since 2023, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is targeting the production of 30,000 deep-strike weapons next year, Fedorov said.
Russia has launched thousands of long-range drones a month, making heavy use of cheap “decoy” drones that wear down Ukraine’s air defense forces, which see a blip on the radar and are forced to shoot it down.
Fedorov said Ukraine also uses decoy drones and sometimes launches more attack drones on a given night than Russia, but it wasn’t just a numbers game.
“(AI) is being used to some extent, but the more critical issues are connectivity and methods of launching deep strikes (drones),” he said.
“Russia has improved monitoring of (Ukraine’s) drone launches, reacting quickly and targeting launch sites. These nuances require constant changes to launch methods and connectivity.”
Ukraine had attack drones that could fly up to 1,800 km (1,120 miles), he said.
He also confirmed that Ukraine is working on drones to intercept long-range Shahed drones that Russia uses for its nighttime attacks on Ukrainian cities.
“There is some testing by certain companies that produce … aircraft that, thanks to specialized software and radars, can hit the Shaheds, but this is still in the research and development phase. There are certain results,” he said.
He said Ukraine had contracted to buy 1.6 million drones this year, of which 1.3 million had been delivered, including low-cost first-person-view (FPV) drones that have cameras that allow remote pilots to fly them to their targets. .
Ukraine also uses dozens of domestically produced artificial intelligence-augmented systems for its drones to reach unmanned battlefield targets, allowing them to remain effective in areas protected by extensive jamming.
Fedorov said that 10 companies are constantly competing in government procurement to offer AI products.
“I think the percentage of autonomous drones with targeting will increase significantly next year,” he said. “We could see the first real swarm of drones, although not on a massive scale. The first steps will happen.”
