More Of Ukraine's A.I. Drones Roam Deeper Into The Russian Logistical Zone. The Tech Took Years To Get Here.

To defeat Russian jamming, Ukrainian tech developers embraced A.I. back in 2023.

Ukraine’s 1st Azov Corps is sortieing so many of its Swift Beat Hornet A.I. drones that the six-foot-wingspan drones occasionally cross paths with each other as they autonomously hunt for Russian supply trucks as far as 100 miles from the front line in southeast Ukraine. (See above.)

Drones with A.I. targeting that can fly right through Russian jamming are proliferating by the day as Ukraine refines and scales the technology. It didn’t happen overnight, however. Ukrainian developers first embraced A.I. drones more than two years ago. Only now is the fast-improving tech really beginning to shape the battlefield.

Keenly aware they had a jamming problem, Ukraine’s drone developers began working on A.I. solutions as long ago as mid-2023. The idea was that, if Russian electronic warfare got too intense and a drone lost its command signal, A.I. would take over control from the human operator—and steer the drone to a successful strike.

At least one Ukrainian company, Twist Robotics, tested a drone-targeting algorithm prior to the summer of 2023. “After the target is locked, the drone is guided by this system,” Rostyslav Olenchyn, a Twist Robotics co-founder, told The Washington Post.

It was just the beginning.