Russia's Best A.I. Drones Are Blasting Ukraine's Grain Ships

Jet-propelled Geran-4s are hard to intercept

Russia’s new Geran-4 “Seeker” uses machine-vision A.I. for targeting. Dyki Shershni photo

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

Ukrainian drones are wreaking havoc on Russian ships sailing the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. But the Russians are waging their own war on shipping, sortieing the latest Geran drones to strike grain ships in Ukrainian ports.

The Geran-4 Seeker drones pummeling Ukrainian ports combine jet propulsion, mesh radio control and machine-vision targeting run off a Raspberry Pi—the same $50-class hobbyist computer that schoolchildren use to build robots. They’re the best one-way attack drones in the Russian inventory, and cause for concern in Kyiv as the dueling Ukrainian and Russian countershipping campaigns escalate.

On or just before July 12, Geran-4s penetrated Ukrainian air defenses and targeted ships in the port of Chornomorsk, 20 km south of the larger port in Odesa in southern Ukraine.

Chornomorsk is one of three ports carrying the bulk of Ukraine’s grain to market. This grain is vital to the Ukrainian economy and to the populations of food-poor countries. It’s also a top target in Russia’s ongoing terror campaign. The Geran-4s that reached Chornomorsk in recent days struck at least two grain ships with warheads weighing as much as 90 kg.

It’s unclear how much damage the Geran-4s inflicted. What is clear is the difference in scale between the two campaigns. Since July 6, Ukrainian one-way attack drones have struck 105 vessels belonging to Russia’s unregistered “shadow fleet” on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.