Impact of Ukraine Support on AI Advancement

A Ukrainian operator compared it to a video game: set the waypoints, pick the targets, and let it run. He was talking about a drone mothership that flies 300 kilometers, drops two AI-guided FPVs, and returns home—no comms, GPS, or pilot. According to Strategy Force Solutions, they’ve already used the system in live trials against Russian targets. It’s unconfirmed, but credible. And it’s exactly the kind of autonomy the defense world has been theorizing for years. What’s striking isn’t the drone itself, it’s the software stack behind it. A LIDAR-based autonomy suite originally built for civilian infrastructure inspection, now retooled for war. The drone sees, navigates, and strikes the way a human would, but faster, with fewer constraints, and no need for a remote operator. This capability has grown essential as the battlefield has evolved. Jamming and electronic warfare have made the skies above Ukraine chaotic for traditionally-controlled drones, but the country's military has adapted in two distinct ways: looking backward to fiber-optics, and forward to edge-deployed autonomy. The latter unlocks resilience—drones that don’t need to phone home, that can make decisions on their own, and complete missions even in contested, comms-denied environments. If it works, it’s not just another edge case. It’s a glimpse at where this is all heading: kill chains designed around AI-first logic, not human workflows. And the most important part? It’s already flying. Built under siege. Fielded at scale. We keep asking what autonomy can augment. But we’re past that. The better question now: what happens when autonomy is the force?

The Russo #Ukraine war is a now #Technology race and #AI drones are increasingly a part of that tech arms race. However, AI #drones are challenging to develop and for now, a hybrid approach is proving to be most successful. 🕷️ On June 1st, Ukraine launched Operation Spiderweb, striking deep into russia’s Engels airbase using FPV drones — reportedly damaging up to $7B worth of b0mbers and disabling 34% of their long-range fleet. 💥 These weren’t just any drones. They were likely Osa (Wasp) drones by 🇺🇦 company First Contact, capable of: ⚡ 150 km/h speeds 💣 3.3 kg explosive payloads 🌧️ All-weather performance But here’s what made them special: hybrid AI targeting. Manual control was combined with AI-powered object recognition to hit precise spots — like fuel tanks and missile pylons. 🎯 Ukraine’s SBU confirmed these drones used: Not million dollar proprietary systems #OpenSource autopilot software (AltoPilot!) LTE modems & onboard computers - and AI #ImageRecognition trained using museum Soviet b0mber photos from Poltava’s #aviation museum 📸 📡 This hybrid model is critical. AI handles targeting and navigation, while humans oversee mission logic — especially vital under jamming and Electronic Warfare threats. 👥 Volunteer orgs are vital here — integrating frontline feedback fast. Their CEO Lyuba Shipovich notes AI works well in flat terrain, but struggles with forests or hilly zones 🌲⛰️ Yet, not all systems succeed: 🇺🇸 Switchblade drones have missed targets — even mistaking a dumpster for a tank. 🤦♂️ 🪫 Units also complain about power, not AI — “We need more batteries for Baba Yaga drones, not smarter ones,” says Yaroslav from the 110th Brigade. 💸 Cost is a blocker: “Why spend on one AI drone when we could get three standard ones?” asks a pilot from the 413th Battalion. And they’re not wrong. russia, too, struggles — its AI-enabled Lancets frequently miss or disconnect. Both sides are now turning to fiber-optic drones — wired, slower, but jamming-proof. 🧵 As both sides push for autonomous systems, a hybrid model, AI + human oversight, appears to be the #future direction. While Westerners are still stuck in meeting rooms, bloviating about "humans in the loop" for the wars of yesterday, Ukraine is fighting the war of tomorrow.

In an open test field in rural #Ukraine, a #drone equipped with a bomb lost connection with its human operator after coming under attack by electronic jamming equipment — but instead of crashing to the ground, the drone accelerated toward its target and destroyed it. The drone avoided the fate of thousands of other uncrewed aircraft in this war by relying on new #artificialintelligence software that accounts for the electronic interference now commonly deployed by Russia, stabilizing the drone and keeping it locked on a preselected target. #AI capabilities help the drone complete its mission even if its target moves, representing a significant upgrade from existing drones that track specific coordinates. Such AI technology, under development by a growing number of Ukrainian drone companies, is one of several innovative leaps underway in Kyiv’s domestic drone market that are accelerating and democratizing the lethality of unmanned warfare — especially crucial for Ukraine’s outgunned military, which is fighting a larger and better-equipped Russian enemy. The improvements in speed, flight range, payload capacity and other capabilities are having an immediate impact on the battlefield, enabling Ukraine to destroy Russian vehicles, blow up surveillance posts and even wreck parts of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prized Crimean Bridge in an operation last week involving explosive-laden naval drones. The design and software innovations, as well as mass dissemination of piloting know-how, are also likely to influence the way drones are used far beyond the war in Ukraine, with serious implications for governments confronting separatist militias, drug cartels and extremist groups seeking to gain a technological edge. “With tens of thousands of people going through drone training on both sides of this war, it is very likely that this experience is spreading far and wide, including to nefarious actors,” said Samuel Bendett, a Russia-focused drone expert at CNA, a Washington-based think tank. Ukraine, which is known for agriculture and other heavy industry, is not an obvious setting for drone innovation. The exigencies of war, however, have turned the country into a kind of super lab of invention, attracting investment from vaunted business luminaries including former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. More than 200 Ukrainian companies involved in drone production are now working hand-in-glove with military units on the front lines to tweak and augment drones to improve their ability to kill and spy on the enemy. “This is a 24/7 technology race,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview at his office in Kyiv, the capital. “The challenge is that every product in every category must be changed daily to gain an advantage.” Fedorov, 32, is in charge of Ukraine’s “Army of Drones” program, an effort to maximize Kyiv’s use of reconnaissance and attack drones to offset Russia’s big advantage in air and artillery power. …

I was pleased to contribute to this Financial Times article exploring how Ukraine’s drone war is accelerating the global race toward autonomous weapons systems. The piece explores the rapid adoption of AI-enabled drones in Ukraine — from low-cost, improvised platforms to advanced AI-enabled systems. What’s happening in Ukraine is more than just technological adaptation under pressure — it’s reshaping how militaries worldwide think about autonomy, human-machine teaming, and operational resilience in contested environments. AI is already filling critical gaps in GPS-denied and communication-jammed battlespaces, but we are only at the beginning of a much larger transformation. The stakes are high, both strategically and ethically. As I note in the article, full autonomy in lethal systems is not yet here — but the policy and regulatory frameworks needed to govern its arrival are lagging dangerously behind. 🔗 Read the article here: https://lnkd.in/e37AujeJ #AI #DefenseTech #Autonomy #Ukraine #Drones #MilitaryInnovation #CSIS #Warfare

LESSONS LEARNED - PRICELESS! - Ukraine wants to turn its vast stores of wartime data into a bargaining chip with its Western allies - Ukraine's digital minister said it intends to leverage its battlefield data as a 'card' with allies. - Mykhail Fedorov said Kyiv is creating its "policy" on sharing data with great care. - Ukraine's deep battlefield data stores are especially useful for defense firms building military AI. - Ukraine now uses AI to help pilot drones, including several of its systems used for long-range attacks deep inside Russia, Fedorov said. Computers can scan detailed aerial and satellite reconnaissance imagery for targets which would take a human "dozens of hours" to find, he said. - Fedorov said work was ongoing on systems which would make drones fully autonomous, which would allow them to fly without a pilot and work in swarms. - Ukraine hopes to use its deep repositories of battlefield data and footage, gathered from over three and a half years of full-scale war, as a leverage tool with allies. - Since Russia launched its 2022 invasion, Ukraine has collected reams of meticulously logged battlefield statistics. And with the war increasingly fought by drones, it now has millions of hours of combat footage filmed from the air. - "I can say that the demand for data is incredibly high, but at the moment, we are forming policy on how to organize this process correctly," said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's digital minister, in an interview with Reuters published on Wednesday. - Such data can be particularly useful for defense firms and governments hoping to build military-purpose artificial intelligence, especially for drone swarm technology. - Ukraine's drone pilots have recorded vast stores of combat footage from first-person-view attack drones, providing insight into how each one navigates the battlefield and targets infantry, armored vehicles, artillery, and other assets. Many teams often observe their hits with reconnaissance drones that fly much higher and can offer a bird's-eye view of the drone attack. - He added that Ukraine was using AI technology from U.S. data analysis firm Palantir for a wide variety of purposes, such as analysing Russian strikes on Ukraine for patterns or tracking Moscow's disinformation campaigns. Palantir was founded by U.S. billionaire Peter Thiel, a figure influential among members of the Trump administration. Not all Ukraine's uses of Palantir are military: the minister said it also helped to decide where to build bomb-proof underground schools, or which territories to prioritise in demining efforts. - As a result, he said Ukraine is now using several thousand unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) on the battlefield to bring in ammunition and supplies to soldiers holding the frontline in dugouts. https://lnkd.in/eswmkkTn https://lnkd.in/eit8xDqs