Marine leaders are laying out a more detailed and concrete vision for the use of unmanned platforms and drones that includes things like robot-driven supply lines and robot combat in the wake of the huge maritime exercise in the Pacific.

Speaking to reporters from Defense One during a panel Thursday, Brig. Gen. Joseph Clearfield, the Corps' deputy commander for its Pacific forces, explained that leaders are "looking at ... a future where we're able to use robots in the lethal mission."

"I think we're looking at being able to use them for missions to hold them much more at risk and then use robots to destroy other robots," Clearfield said. "That is where our experimentation has taken us."

The Marine Corps' top officer, Gen. David Berger, went even further and explained that he sees a future where unmanned and robotic vehicles make up part of the logistics chain that would keep Marine units supplied while they fight on remote islands.

Berger explained that, in his view, unmanned platforms will soon allow Marines "to conduct tactical and operational logistics … because if you have the data, you know where the units are, it's tracking, it's going to know where certain things are needed at a certain point in time and geography in the future."

"The fuel, the munitions can be moved to them to meet them there at the right place and time, all autonomously," Berger explained.

Ever since the Marine Corps began to pivot from its War on Terror orientation as an "elite counterinsurgency force" to one that places greater emphasis on its amphinbious roots and island-hopping tactics, there has also been a greater focus on how Marines on those islands would be supplied.

Drones now appear to be taking a greater role in those plans.

"Our commandant has talked about using them to move logistics ... petroleum, oil and lubricants, freshwater, munitions," Clearfield said.

Berger also talked about plans to utilize unmanned and autonomous vehicles to transport wounded troops. He put forward a scenario that involved a "helicopter that flies in to pick you up."

"There may be medics, corpsmen in the back of that vehicle or in the back of that aircraft, but nobody's flying," he added.

Despite the grand plans that leaders are laying out, many of the capabilities that are currently being suggested have not been developed or tested.

Ukrainian troops have retaken more territory in regions illegally annexed by Russia, with Kyiv's forces advancing near the southern city of Kherson and consolidating gains in the east.

Russian-installed officials in Kherson confirmed the advance, but said Moscow's forces were digging in.

Ukrainian troops also moved towards Russian-held Luhansk in the east.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said "there are new liberated settlements in several regions".

Speaking during his nightly address, President Zelensky said "fierce fighting continues in many areas", but he did not give details. The progress of Ukraine's counterattacks have been closely guarded and reporters have largely been kept away from the front lines.

But in the south, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed leader in the Kherson region, admitted that Ukrainian forces had broken through near Dudchany, a town on the Dnipro river about 30km (20 miles) south of the previous front line. The river is called Dnieper by Russians.

"There are settlements that are occupied by Ukrainian forces," Mr Saldo said. Some Russian reports say the Ukrainians have now taken Dudchany.

Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said "numerically superior" Ukrainian tanks had "driven a deep wedge" south of Zolota Balka, a village that marked the previous front line on the Dnipro. He claimed the Russians had killed about 130 Ukrainian troops in that fighting.

According to Mr Saldo, two Ukrainian battalions tried to reach the Kakhovka hydroelectric station, about 70km (44 miles) east of Kherson. The power station is in the port city of Nova Kakhovka.

The Ukrainian advance is targeting supply lines for as many as 25,000 Russian troops on the west bank of the Dnipro, Reuters news agency reports.