Plenty of Ukrainian floor models have succeeded in shifting away from conventional infantry warfare in direction of a extra “know-how pushed” type of fight, counting on assault drones, robotic logistic programs, and different unmanned belongings, which is meant to minimise the necessity for personnel on the frontlines. Particulars on this transition had been supplied by the commander of the twenty eighth Mechanised Brigade, Colonel Anatolii Kulykivskyi, whose forces function in Kostiantynivka within the disputed Donetsk area, which is among the most excessive depth frontlines in your complete struggle. He reported that robots now deal with 70 p.c of the twenty eighth Brigade’s frontline logistics, delivering unmanned plane, ammunition, and even hand heaters to remoted drone pilot stations. Air supply of provides can also be relied on, particularly for distant foxhole positions that may be compromised by monitor marks left by floor robots within the snow.
Colonel Kulykivskyi noticed that the robotisation of logistics has succeeded in considerably decreasing infantry publicity, and served to strengthen Ukrainian positions in Donetsk, though the rising price and attrition of floor robots have additionally revealed rising provide constraints. Every robotic prices round $10,000, making them as costly as two night-vision Mavic reconnaissance drones or 4 daytime ones, with Kulykivskyi stressing that the brigade faces growing challenges sourcing and funding replacements because the drones and robots are destroyed “virtually each day.” Though the twenty eighth Mechanised Brigade makes use of nighttime thermal masking and daytime route choice to evade Russian surveillance, Kulykivskyi famous that its robotic fleet is beneath fixed menace from Russian drones, mines, and sabotage models. In January 2025 alone, the brigade’s floor robotic losses doubled in comparison with the earlier month, though this partly mirrored the rise within the numbers deployed.
Colonel Kulykivskyi described present battlefield techniques being employed on the frontlines in Donetsk as a major departure from conventional infantry warfare. “Fashionable struggle requires shifting away from infantry warfare and infantry positions. That is nonetheless a struggle of applied sciences,” he said, noting that the shift to drone and robotic programs was a significant change. Steady drone surveillance has allowed the brigade to cowl entrance sections with one or two positions, as an alternative of the earlier two battalions per kilometre, decreasing infantry positions to minimal footprints, typically tiny dugouts for 2 or three troopers provided remotely. The colonel famous that some places are so harmful that they will solely be reached safely “one time in 100.”
Whereas the Ukrainian Armed Forces stay notably nicely funded, due primarily to a whole lot of billions of {dollars} value of help which have ben supplied by international locations throughout the Western world, they’ve suffered from appreciable personnel shortages on account of excessive losses throughout 4 years of hostilities. Conscript models have suffered excessive casualty charges, at occasions approaching 80-90 p.c, with the Wall Avenue Journal being among the many sources to report that the Army has relied on recruiting poor males from villages and sending them to the frontlines with simply two days of coaching. The casualty charges seen have been a major issue forcing desertion charges to notably excessive ranges, based on experiences from the Monetary Instances amongst different sources. The life expectancy for personnel on excessive depth frontiers has at occasions been as little as simply 4 hours, based on experiences from Western observers on the bottom. Years of maximum losses has led robotisation of logistics to be seen as an answer to assist scale back casualty charges.
In August 2025 a digital card index from Ukraine’s Chief of Employees supplied particulars on lifeless or lacking personnel, together with their names, particulars of their deaths, and private knowledge of their households, and confirmed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have misplaced greater than 1.7 million personnel, together with each these killed and lacking, since February 2022. Personnel shortages have resulted in a rising reliance on international combatants, together with contractor personnel from Brazil and Colombia, the Polish Volunteer Corps, and a variety of different international models, with the numerous presence of international contractors having been reported from a number of battlefields from Kursk to Bakhmut. Whereas the sustainability of relying more and more on international contractors has been dropped at query, a better reliance on robots and drones for logistics offers a possible answer which, though extra pricey than utilizing Ukrainian conscripts, is probably extra sustainable.
