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Asia Times
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Asia Times
Soldiers have a huge stake in Ukraine-Russia drone-tech arms race
Ukrainian drone warfare has evolved from improvisation to a high‑volume, precision‑strike ecosystem that Russia often struggles to match. With some operators flying up to 15 missions a day and factories now producing millions of drones, Ukraine's domestic drone production has reached an unprecedented scale. These drones have become central to Ukraine's battlefield strategy – pinpointing, punishing and relentlessly pushing back Russian forces – even as some analysts question how long Ukraine can hold its technological advantage. Russian troops, by contrast, are often starved for drones. Some battalions receive just 10 to 15 FPV (first-person view) drones per week. 'We know where they are flying from, but there is nothing to kill with,' lamented one Russian operator. A Russian drone developer recently admitted, 'Modern combat realities prompt us to modernize and iterate on drones practically every month.' Regulatory bottlenecks have made matters worse. 'Heavy drones now require state approval,' wrote a Russian blogger, noting that units have begun constructing their own drones to fill the vacuum left by the faltering domestic drone industry. An FPV drone is being prepared for combat operations in Eastern Ukraine. Photo: David Kirichenko One of the standout innovations has been Ukraine's development of the Vampire – a heavy multirotor drone the Russians have nicknamed Baba Yaga after a mythical Slavic witch. Russian forces have attempted crude countermeasures, attaching long sticks to their FPV drones to intercept Ukraine's bulky bombers. Russian soldiers, when the Baba Yaga drone flies overhead, are terrified of the resulting impact. While Ukraine continues to develop newer platforms, it has also refined older systems to enhance their impact on the battlefield. Mavic drones pioneered the use of light bombing in Ukraine, serving as lethal anti-personnel systems early in the war. But FPVs have since taken over the role, offering greater payload capacity and flexibility. Some FPV drones now carry up to six VOG high-explosive grenade bombs – compared with the two typically deployed by Mavics – allowing for more impactful strikes with greater reach and frequency. Ukrainian drone operators are loading T-62 anti-tank mines onto a heavy bomber drone. Photo: David Kirichenko One of the more recent innovations pushing that edge is the emergence of mothership drones. Ukraine is using mothership drones – large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) capable of carrying and launching multiple FPV drones – to conduct long-range strikes behind enemy lines. In the (translated) words of one Russian commentator, FPV drones are about tactical dominance. They bring chaos, fear and uncertainty to close combat. They are not feared, they are hated. They are cheap, massive and deadly effective. And their potential grows with each passing day: AI guidance, automated launches, swarms. These are no longer makeshift weapons, but new close-combat artillery. FPV drones have emerged as a key interceptor weapon to target Russian reconnaissance drones for the Ukrainian military. The Russians use the FPV drones to target Ukrainian Baba Yaga drones. Yurii, a drone pilot in Ukraine's 23rd Mechanized Brigade, has been fighting since 2014 and is regarded as one of the best pilots in the unit. Photo: David Kirichenko Much of Ukraine's operational drone success stems from specialized units. The Birds of Magyar, one of Ukraine's most prolific drone units, released some data from the outfit's drone operations. In March 2025 alone, the unit executed more than 11,600 sorties, hitting over 5,300 targets. Most of these were achieved with FPV drones (67%) and heavy bombers (31%). While viral FPV strike videos captivate online audiences, the less glamorous Baba Yaga night bombers may in fact inflict the bulk of real-world damage. These UAVs specialize in demolishing infrastructure and personnel shelters, not just enemy armour. The March tally: 1,701 strikes on Russian infantry, resulting in 1,002 confirmed kills, and dozens of bunker-busting missions. Furthermore, in April, Ukrainian drone brigades reported striking 83,000 Russian targets – marking a 5 percent increase compared to March. Dmytro Lysenko, a drone pilot with the 109th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade, before he was killed in combat in 2024 stated: 'Even when we drop explosives from drones on Russians, I sometimes shiver and feel discomfort because I remember all those times I was sitting in a trench.' He added, 'The Russians would shoot at us with everything possible. But the drone was the scariest. A shell can fly and miss and that's it. But a drone pilot aims and will be very accurate when they drop an explosive.' Russian milblogger 'Vault 8' highlighted how Ukrainian FPV and reconnaissance drones dominate territory up to 25 kilometers behind the front line, making road travel highly dangerous and turning rear areas into what he calls a 'highway of death,' where even vehicles far from the front are frequently destroyed. Both sides are having to adapt to this reality. In 2024, one drone pilot told me that at some point in the near future, heavy armor won't be able to get within 10km (six miles) of the front and that 'Autonomous drones will patrol the skies and will be taking out all the heavy armor.' Now, Ukraine is using these drones to build a 'drone wall' along the front line, extending the no-man's land for dozens of kilometers and deterring Russian advances through constant aerial threat. Russia, for months, has been using motorcycles to spearhead its suicidal offensives, mainly due to a shortage of armored vehicles because of Ukrainian drones. Ukraine's 425th Skala Assault Regiment recently established its own motorcycle assault company. With FPV drones acting as the new artillery of modern warfare, motorcycles now offer one of the best chances for assault units to quickly break through. A Ukrainian FPV drone loaded with small explosives in Chasiv Yar. Photo: David Kirichenko Beyond direct attacks, the unit also lays mines, conducts drone reconnaissance (more than 10,000 missions to date) and is testing jamming-resistant drones. With national production surging to 200,000 drones a month, the kill rate of Birds of Magyar has soared, from under 300 targets a year ago to over 5,000 now. The drone unit is now averaging one Russian killed every 6.5 minutes. Even Ukraine's logistics have gone airborne. 'Vampire drones have now started to be used as logistics drones in some directions,' said Oleksii, a drone unit commander in the 108th Separate Territorial Defense Brigade. (The Ukrainian military protocol is for active duty personnel to provide only their given names.) They carry food and ammunition to frontline units, flying at low altitudes to avoid detection. 'FPVs ranging from 10 to 15 inches are being used,' Oleksii said. 'Unlike the Vampire, the FPV crew is much more mobile.' And while bombers must drop payloads from high altitudes to avoid small arms fire, FPVs can dive directly into a one-meter target. 'They're both effective, but each has its nuances,' said Danilo, a drone pilot for the 108th. 'FPVs are more effective against pinpoint targets, where the scale of damage doesn't matter but accuracy does.' For hardened positions, Danilo adds, FPVs fall short: 'A Vampire drone can drop a couple of TM-62 mines and take care of it. But it's a big drone, bulky, and requires a crew. It's harder to work with.' Oleksii further described the challenge: 'With a Vampire, you still need to transport it by vehicle. That means you either have to get close to the position or fly it from a long distance. At long range, it's very visible in thermal cameras and can be intercepted, even shot down by another FPV, before it even crosses the line of contact.' In some cases, however, FPVs outperform the Baba Yaga. 'FPVs, even with an effectiveness rate of 30-40%, cause more damage than the Vampire,' said Andrii of the 59th Brigade (Da Vinci Wolves). That's because Russian vehicles often stay far from the frontline. 'Not every Vampire can reach that far, but most FPVs can.' Moreover, FPVs fare better under Russian jamming, as they can switch control frequencies mid-flight, something the Vampire cannot do. One Russian reported that Ukraine's heavy drone bombers – targeting artillery crews, tanks, and command posts – offer a major strategic advantage due to Ukraine's systematic development and deployment methods. Ukraine also recently recorded its first confirmed kill using a drone-mounted grenade launcher, highlighting how the technological drone race continues to evolve. Even Ukraine's logistics have gone airborne. 'Vampires have now started to be used as logistics drones in some directions,' said Oleksii. They carry food and ammunition to frontline units, flying at low altitudes to avoid detection. 'FPVs ranging from 10 to 15 inches are being used. Unlike the Vampire, the FPV crew is much more mobile.' And while bombers must drop payloads from high altitudes to avoid small arms fire, FPVs can dive directly into a one-meter target. Soldiers from Ukraine's 23rd Mechanized Brigade are setting up a heavy bomber drone to conduct operations in Chasiv Yar. Photo David Kirichenko Russia, meanwhile, is still scrambling to respond. It lacks anything comparable to the Vampire/Baba Yaga. 'Ukraine invested in its fleet of larger, long-range drones as a response to Russia's investment in Shahed/Geran drones,' observed Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. 'Russia seems to be satisfied with Geran performance to date, has invested heavily in their mass production (many thousands to date) and seems to be content with their relatively low cost,' said Bendett. However, he also noted that 'since these drones have different ranges and different missions, they should not be compared to smaller FPVs, which have a different range and different tactical applications.' 'Ukrainian Vampire-type heavy drones have a complementary role to FPVs,' explained Roy Gardiner, an open-source weapons researcher and former Canadian officer. 'While FPVs attack Russian logistics vehicles during the day, heavy drones attack the same vehicles at night by precision mining Russian roads. The Russians complain the Ukrainian Baba Yagas have significantly increased in numbers, sometimes attacking several at a time and increasingly during the day.' 'There have been indications that Russian drone units have been forbidden to make direct purchases without permission from above,' said Gardiner. In the meantime, Russian units have resorted to bizarre improvisations, including the 'Vobla,' a jerry-rigged drone with four quadcopters connected to a single flight controller. 'Russia has made a lot of noise about developing a domestic drone industry, which of course has failed to deliver,' wrote Gardiner. With its drone innovation, Ukraine is positioning itself as a future defense hub for Europe. 'Ukrainians are training NATO in Poland and the UK, and have consulted with the Pentagon about their innovative use of US equipment,' said Branislav Slantchev, a political science professor at UC San Diego. 'Ukraine's defense industry will be massive,' he added. Ukraine 'was a critical hub in Soviet production and will now be part of Europe's.' Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine's former commander-in-chief, said, 'Europe needs Ukraine as a shield. We have the biggest army on the continent. We are the only one with an army that knows how to contain Russia.' Zaluzhnyi added, 'The only one with an army that knows how to wage modern, high-tech warfare.' An associate research fellow of the London-based Henry Jackson Society think tank, David Kirichenko is a Ukrainian-American freelance journalist, activist and security engineer who, multiple times during the Ukraine War, has traveled to and worked in the areas being fought over. He can be found on the social media platform X @DVKirichenko
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Yahoo
Ukraine's robot army is a glimpse of future warfare
The 'Zmiy', or 'Snake', is one of dozens of Ukrainian-made robots recently approved for combat that are helping Kyiv replace soldiers with machines. Guided by a pilot in a bunker a few miles away, it doesn't slither like its reptile namesake – it silently crawls low to the ground, detonating Russian mines in its path. The model is one of several that will make up the 15,000 robots that Kyiv has pledged to deploy to the battlefield in 2025 in an effort to help overcome its crippling manpower shortages at the front, where Ukrainian troops are outgunned and often outmanned by Russians at a rate of three-to-one. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the less-developed field of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are being built to save lives, but there are also fears they reduce the barriers to killing, pushing the conflict into uncharted territory. The proliferation of machines on the battlefield of Ukraine also offers a glimpse into a future where humans and robots increasingly do battle, and one in which even the most highly trained soldiers are little match for an engineer with a controller, hiding in a bunker. The developers behind this fledgling robot army told The Telegraph that the so-called 'war of the robots' – although still in its early, experimental stages – is already here. The focus, they said, was not about replacing infantry, but integrating robots into military operations to gain the technological edge against Russia in a war of grinding attrition. Ukraine's front line grows more dystopian by the day. AI-guided drones fill the skies, electronic jamming signals pollute the air, while ground robots creep unnoticed through the undergrowth, blowing up enemy positions. The country has been turned into a war laboratory for future technologies and a training ground for Western weapons systems as Nato prepares its own future war with Russia. Over 500 defence start-ups focused on drones are working in secret locations across Ukraine, while large flows of investment, donations and government contracts drive innovation. Ukraine was also the first military to form a standalone drone force – the Unmanned Systems Forces. 'Ukraine is world leading in robotics – not in sophistication, but in practicality,' said David Kirichenko, an expert in autonomous systems at the Henry Jackson Society, a UK think tank. The common themes in Western-made unmanned systems are that they are expensive, often ineffective and hard to adapt. 'Ukraine, however, is focused on building robots on scale and at cost,' Mr Kirichenko told The Telegraph. Soldiers feed back directly to the designers and changes can be made 'within a week'. 'That is why Ukraine is able to survive on the battlefield,' he said. 'There are a lot of mistakes being made and a lot of learning.' The demand, driven by pure necessity, is giving Ukraine a slight edge over Russia when it comes to unmanned systems, he added. Much has been said about the proliferation and evolution of UAVs, which are now responsible for 60 to 70 per cent of Russian equipment losses. This makes them twice as effective as any other weapon in Ukraine's arsenal. Compared to aerial drones, UGV technology is still maturing and its deployment at the front has been slow and patchy. But experts say that is quickly changing. In late December, Ukraine pulled off its first robot-only assault close to the village of Lyptsi in the northeastern Kharkiv region. The operation, still partly classified, involved dozens of different drones – aerial attack drones, ground support drones and other UGVs mounted with machine guns that worked together to clear the woodland and strike targets. 'The enemy was completely caught off guard,' Shuhai, an officer from the 13th (Khartiia) brigade who took part in the mission told United24, Ukraine's official fundraising platform that has raised over $422 million for ground and aerial drones. 'They were used to drone attacks, but suddenly, they were also being hit by ground platforms that exploded and fired at them. This was unprecedented… the enemy was in total panic,' he added. It was more than a mission – it was a test. The results were furiously studied to see how the new robotic systems fared against Russian electronic jamming, navigated through tough terrain, and co-ordinated between operators and command centres. Credit: X/@UaCoins Lauded as a big success, the Khartiia brigade said the robots destroyed Russian positions so they could carry out a follow-up assault and take territory. 'It set the ground for a future where drones could be launched from other drones and co-ordinate with one another,' Marcel Plichta, a former analyst for the US Department of Defence, told The Telegraph. 'This is something Western militaries should be watching,' he said, noting that the next move would be to have UAVs and UGVs acting autonomously together. 'The technology is not quite there yet, but that is the next frontier'. Last week, Ukraine approved the new D-21-12R, a machine gun mounted ground robot that can storm enemy positions, carry out surveillance, patrol the battlefield and provide fire support to units. Credit: Facebook/ FDRM Group A similar-looking machine, the 'Fury', has been involved in combat since last May, and in September it managed to clear a trench in Kursk – the type's first major clash. Firing its machine gun, with help from explosives drones, it won a battle against several Russian troops. Credit: X/@banderafella, Telegram/UA_REG TEAM Both systems come from the Brave1 cluster, a Ukrainian government initiative that is ground zero for all the country's robot innovation. 'In the first year [of war] no one believed in ground robots,' said a UGV expert at Brave1, who asked to remain anonymous for security purposes. 'Now we have 55 different ground robots that are codified according to Nato standards.' Currently, they are focused on producing unjammable robots. But there is a lot of development still ahead. 'All of these UGVs are battle-tested, but not all of them work 100 per cent as intended. We are still working on optimising them for military needs,' they said. Despite the hype around assault robots – or robots that kill – in reality UGVs are big, expensive and not yet reliable at the front. 'We're still learning how to effectively use UGVs for assault operations – but we are sure we can make effective war robots in the near future,' said the Brave1 expert. 'Why not, we dream big.' UGVs are, however, proving most effective in logistical and support roles, including carrying supplies and evacuating the wounded, as well as in engineer roles like mining or demining. 'At Nato, we said that drones do the dull, the dirty and the dangerous tasks,' said Phillip Lockwood, former head of the alliance's innovation unit. 'Unmanned systems exist to deter, detect and strike. It's all about creating time and space to save lives,' said Mr Lockwood, who is now CEO of Stark, a German-based start-up designing drones to modernise Nato's defence. AI is now integrated into all of Stark's unmanned systems, which Mr Lockwood said are tested on Ukraine's front line 'as soon as we can'. Its new OWE-V drone can strike targets 100km away using AI to improve accuracy, reliability and evade electronic warfare systems. 'The nature of conflict has changed, at Nato we never expected it to change this fast,' he said. 'We cannot win tomorrow's conflicts with the systems designed for yesterday's wars.' It is clear, Mr Lockwood said, that unmanned systems will be a 'critical component' of future air, land and sea forces. The Zmiy robot, which can clear two hectares of landmines in one day, is a well-tested example of unmanned systems efficiently replacing people in risky, front-line tasks. Credit: X/ @SM_EOD, Telegram/Мілітарний 'No one believed it was possible to make this robot, and here we have it,' said Borys Drozhak, co-founder at Rovertech and one of the developers behind the Zmiy. He added that Russia was still a year or two away from being able to copy its sophisticated mine-proof armour. 'Nato is interested,' he said, explaining that once Ukraine's needs were met, they planned to sell the robot elsewhere. Valerii Borovyk, commander of Ukraine's White Eagle attack drone, has also been busy working, testing and adapting AI-enabled UAVs. The focus is now on 'last mile targeting', where AI takes over, locking onto the target, in case electronic jamming severs the connection between the operator and drone. AI capabilities are still rare on the battlefield, but advancing fast. 'It's only the start of a long way to go,' said Mr Borovyk, who has been a drone developer since 2014. The future of drone warfare, he said, would be about swarms, where groups of '10, 50, 100' autonomous drones co-ordinate and collaborate on missions. Soon warfare may move into a new era of killer robots. 'Maybe in this war, or the next war,' Mr Borovyk said, underscoring the huge risk involved with giving robots critical strike information without the correct rules. But neither Ukraine or Russia are there yet. 'The technology already exists – autonomous systems that can seek, engage and target without human supervision. But in reality on the battlefield, it is not yet trusted,' said Kateryna Bondar, a military AI expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Killer robots will be ready in two years, she projected. 'I see a future where people will make the decisions and machines will execute them.' But providing autonomy to lethal drones is an ethical minefield. The fear is that drones could misidentify a target, leading to attacks on civilians or friendly fire. A greater concern is whether the militaries of hostile states even care. Like others The Telegraph spoke with, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a former commander-in-chief of Ukraine's military, warned last week that Western militaries had 'slumbered too long' when it came to the capabilities of increasingly autonomous drones. 'Fortunately, they have a gift of immeasurable value: Ukraine's hard-won expertise, forged in a gruelling fight for survival,' he wrote for the Defense One website. 'If the West wishes to survive, it must swiftly and fully embrace these lessons, and use them well.' It paints a fearful picture of a future battlefield. But perhaps one – if the right international laws are designed, agreed upon and implemented – that could be safer. 'Humans are a very unreliable and expensive asset in war,' said Ms Bondar. 'They need plenty of time and resources to be trained, they have emotions and endless needs. Machines don't have those weaknesses.' If they are pre-programmed to minimise collateral damage and not target civilians, 'maybe machines will be more ethical than humans,' Ms Bondar said. 'But we need to be having serious conversations to develop the rules.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Asia Times
28-01-2025
- Business
- Asia Times
Human conscription flagging? Learn the term 'attritible drone'
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the war there has been impacted by relatively expendable ('attritable' in military jargon), cheap drones and a rapidly growing roster of unmanned and robotic systems. Collectively, these technologies are redefining how military forces can wage modern warfare. With each side in this war rushing to secure a technological advantage, the Ukrainian battlefield is transforming into a clash between conventional forces that are both backed by growing numbers of autonomous and remote-controlled systems. Each adversary has steadily poured more and more resources into developing this technology, bidding to be a step ahead of the other. Ukraine's battlefield experience reflects a shift toward unmanned systems that augment or attempt to replace human operators in the most dangerous missions, and against an enemy willing to send more and more manpower into large-scale frontal assaults. After so many autonomous and robotic systems were fielded over the past three years by Kyiv's forces, Ukrainian officials started to describe their country as a 'war lab for the future' – highlighting for allies and partners that, because these technologies will have a significant impact on warfare going forward, combat in Ukraine offers the best environment for continuous testing, evaluation and refinement of such systems. Many companies across Europe and the United States have tested their drones and other systems in Ukraine. At this point in the conflict, those companies are striving to gain 'battle-tested in Ukraine' credentials for their products. For example, US defense tech company Anduril recently started selling its new autonomous drones after successful tests carried out in Ukraine in October 2024. Ukrainian and Western drone manufacturers have started partnering more closely both on drones and on certain types of AI development. The US military is seeking to speed up the deployment of cheap autonomous systems through its Replicator program, and is also working closely with the private sector to test systems and technologies in Ukraine that can then be potentially used in future conflicts. Recently, US Army Chief of Staff General Randy George noted that the Ukraine war 'has demonstrated the value of small, attritable drones on the battlefield.' This combat application of relatively inexpensive platforms has provided the Pentagon an opportunity to see how integrating cutting-edge software with scalable drone technology can proceed across the US Department of Defense, drawing lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war as the Pentagon prepares for potential future conflicts, including with China. One of the larger, more expensive drones that are NOT considered 'attritible': Soldiers from the Ukrainian drone unit Yasni Ochi set up a Ukrainian Vampire bomber drone, which drops anti-tank mines, for bombing operations. Photo: David Kirichenko. In December 2024, for the first time, Ukrainian forces successfully carried out an attack on Russian positions using only ground and first-person view drones, further evolving how Ukraine is leveraging unmanned technology on the battlefield. According to Sergeant Volodymyr Dehtiarov of the Khartiia Brigade, which was involved in this attack, dozens of robotic and unmanned systems, including machine-gun-equipped ground drones and kamikaze first-person view aerial drones, were deployed near Lyptsi, north of Kharkiv. While these were remote-controlled systems that still required a large human complement to operate them, this is the first step in the process of Ukraine gradually working to deploy more combat robots and eventually bring more autonomous systems to the battlefield. Ukraine also previously used a ground robot in an assault on a Russian trench in Kursk Oblast, in September 2024, with numerous other examples of such systems being rapidly built and fielded for combat. Ukraine has no choice but to maximize its use of technology, as the manpower disparity between Ukraine and Russia is still significant along the eight-hundred-mile front line of the war. While technological developments have proceeded at a very rapid pace in this war, it also became clear that systematizing the combined research, development, testing, evaluation, and use of different systems by different units across the entire force was crucial. Therefore, in February 2024, Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree to establish the national Unmanned Systems Forces, with Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi appointed as commander in June 2024. In December 2024, the Russian military followed up by announcing that it was establishing an unmanned systems branch to better integrate its forces' use of autonomous and robotic technologies, and to make sure that lessons and tactics from combat in Ukraine can be absorbed and codified by different military branches. Both countries also claim multiple AI developments for their respective militaries, in drones as well as in other battlefield systems and tactical applications. Three years into its war against Russian aggression, Ukraine has led the way in conceptualizing large-scale development and application of different unmanned systems and AI technologies across domains and different mission sets. In 2025, Ukraine is expected to field AI-enabled drone swarms and massive numbers of ground vehicles to counter Russian forces. As one Ukrainian official put it: 'We count people, and we want our people to be as far from the front line as we can.' Ukraine's private sector has stepped up to accelerate the development of autonomous and robotic technologies for enhanced targeting capabilities, with companies like TAF Drones leading the way, aided by the Brave1 organization, a coordination platform established by Ukraine's government playing an important role in helping the private sector. Brave1 uncrewed ground vehicle with machine gun. Photo: Iryna Supruniuk Ukraine's plan is to ensure AI-powered combat drones can ensure the nation's advantage over the Russian force on the battlefield. The Russian military claims the same for its military AI research and application in this war. For example, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov stated in October 2024 that AI-powered drones are playing a pivotal role on the battlefield in Ukraine, though he did not elaborate. To better understand how different types of robotic and autonomous systems are used in Ukraine combat, the Russian Ministry of Defense launched the Rubicon Center in August 2024 to help systematize lessons from Ukraine, including the development and application of AI. This initiative is likely to be the epicenter for Russia's formation of its planned unmanned systems branch. Russian president Vladimir Putin also announced that Russia is increasing military drone production to approximately 1.4 million in 2024, aiming to stay abreast of Ukraine's own rapid and large-scale drone manufacturing. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces prioritize minimizing drone operator involvement to protect trained assets in a complex combat environment. For Ukraine, the need to survive and defend itself often takes priority over ethical questions about using drones that can make their own decisions to kill targets. Meanwhile, despite recent announcements of AI-enabled combat drones already used against Ukraine, Russia's military AI likely mainly supports data analysis and rapid decision-making. For example, In November 2024, the Russia-allied Donetsk People's Republic claimed that its 'Donbass Dome' airspace defense and electronic warfare system evaluates different types of information from multitudes of sources to evaluate incoming threats. This is allegedly done with the help of artificial intelligence algorithms. The evaluated data is transmitted to the military and law enforcement for follow-on actions. Considering the Russian military's attempt at making sense of the Ukrainian battlefield, such data analysis efforts are likely taking place across different systems, though public information on their overall effectiveness is relatively scarce. Similar efforts exist across the Russian defense sector, with a subsidiary of national industrial giant Rostec claiming in 2024 the development of a neural network for optical drone detectors, which allegedly allows for increasing their detection range by 40 percent. On the other side of the war, Ukrainian officials are on record noting the need for tens of thousands of uncrewed robotic ground vehicles in 2025 for combat and logistics missions. These officials also noted that Ukrainian forces have been using dozens of domestically made AI-augmented systems to enable aerial drones to reach targets on the battlefield without being piloted while remaining effective in areas protected by extensive jamming. At this point in the war, there are around ten Ukrainian companies competing in state procurements to offer AI products. Ukrainian officials have stated that in 2025, more autonomous drones with AI targeting will arrive on the battlefield, potentially making way for 'real drone swarm uses.' Ukraine's efforts to use AI on the battlefield are aided by willing partners, such as the Germany-based Helsing AI firm. In December 2024, Helsing announced that the first few hundred of almost four thousand of its AI-equipped HX-2 Karma unmanned aerial vehicles earmarked for Ukraine were set to be delivered to the Ukrainian front. Apparently, HX-2 is immune to electronic warfare countermeasures via its ability to search for, reidentify and engage targets without a signal or a continuous data connection, while allowing a human operator to stay in or on the loop for critical decisions. Russian technical experts acknowledge that 'autonomous flying robots,' drones with artificial intelligence that determine their own targets, are used in combat and apparently kill people – already hitting and eliminating targets although the Russians usually don't provide technical specifications for such claims. It is likely that such developments indicate a more limited AI role in aerial drones, such as the terminal guidance and image recognition technologies that allow drones to fly autonomously to designated targets once the human operator has approved strikes on said targets. While on the receiving end of Ukraine's increasing AI and autonomy use, many Russian experts express concerns that the pace of AI-enabled military developments could get out of control, thus requiring global regulation 'in the interests of all humanity.' They also note the difficulty of banning the development of AI for military purposes while the outcomes of wars hang in the balance and national interests are at stake. Still, Russian military experts, including those writing in key military publications such as Arsenal Otechestva , believe in AI's potential in military applications. These experts highlight its ability to enhance system autonomy, improve tactical decision-making, enable real-time operational support in combat zones, reduce crew risks and decrease uncertainty through rapid processing of large quantities of unstructured data. With Russia determined to fight until Ukraine is conquered, and Ukraine resolute in defending its freedom, the technological arms race in this war continues to accelerate. Each month in this protracted war brings new technological developments and achievements, with the innovation cycle continuously driven forward by new technologies that are either copied or countered by the adversary, sparking a fresh round of innovation to achieve the next breakthrough. Ukraine's Western supporters are closely monitoring how such technologies are developed and fielded in combat. Retired Army General Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has predicted that within the next ten to fifteen years up to one-third of the US military could consist of robotic systems, an assessment likely informed by observations of technologies fielded in the Ukraine war. To be sure, certain systems in use by both Ukrainian and Russian forces can function more effectively than others on a battlefield teeming with countermeasures, but the sum total of different autonomous, robotic, and unmanned technologies used in the past three years demonstrates the potential for rapid, large-scale fielding. Both Ukraine and Russia are continuously accelerating their development of different types of battlefield drones and robotic systems, driven by the need for precision, mass employment to overwhelm the adversary, resilience against countermeasures and reducing risks to human lives. These advancements are impacting the battlefield at the tactical and operational levels and are shaping how future warfare may be conducted. Samuel Bendett is an adjunct senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security's Technology and National Security Program. David Kirichenko is an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He can be found on X @DVKirichenko. This article, originally published by the Modern War Institute, is republished by Asia Times with permission. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army or Department of Defense.
