Consider This from NPR - Could AI-powered drones soon be making battlefield decisions in Ukraine?

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Both Russia and Ukraine are using drones powered by artificial intelligence. But soon, AI could start leading the decisions on the battlefield as well. We visit one Ukrainian company that's working to make this a reality.This episode was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre and Karen Zamora, with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro and Valentina Rodríguez Sánchez. Our director is Jonas Adams.It was edited by Hannah Bloch and Tinbete Ermyas.Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

It's consider this where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, a closer look at the war in Ukraine. President Trump made a surprise announcement on Sunday. He said that Ukraine and Russia had agreed to halt attacks on energy facilities. But that claim seems questionable. It's unclear whether either Russia or Ukraine was aware of any deal at all. The Kremlin has not commented on any such deal. And on Monday, Ukrainian President Velodimir Zal, Zelinsky suggested the absence of a deal. And immediately after the post, Russia launched a targeted strike on a power plant in Harkiv. Zelensky was giving an address at the Warsaw Security Forum. He was discussing bringing an end to the war, but also had this warning for Russia.

This winter, if Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire, we will respond. And part of how Ukraine would respond would likely involve drones. Consider this. Both Russia and Ukraine are already using drones powered by artificial intelligence on the battlefield. But now, AI could start leading the decisions on the battlefield as well. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's consider this from NPR. A high-tech arms race is heating up in Ukraine.

And the founder of one of Ukraine's top companies producing AI-powered drones says that they're helping Ukraine survive a war waged by a much larger enemy. NPR's Joanna Kikisis reports from Kiev. It's a good microphone. It's almost like a weapon. We meet Yadoslav Ajunuk in a conference room, and for security reasons, he asked us not to reveal much else about the location. He's 37, a computer scientist and serial entrepreneur who spent years in Silicon Valley. Before the war, he was known for co-founding a successful company called PetCube, which makes smartphone-powered cameras that watch and even entertain your pets.

These cameras allow pets parents to watch their pets when they're not at home and fling treats to them and shine a laser toy for them. Then in 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Ashnuk, like many Ukrainian tech leaders, turned his focus to the defense space. I was like, okay, I got to move on from my role as the CEO of PECube and do something to protect my country. And so now we're making not cameras that fling treats, but cameras that flinging explosives to people who came to occupy Ireland. The cameras he's talking about are part of an image recognition system incorporated into first person view or FPV drones. This year alone, Ukraine will produce over 7 million of FPV drones, those small drones, they've fully transformed the battlefield,

and they have become for our era what the tank or machine gun have become for World War I. Azhnuk runs the defense tech firms, the fourth law and odd systems. We are the leaders in autonomous drones and thermal cameras. We're number one in Ukraine, maybe to some extent close to the top globally. His team has developed a widely used strike drone called the Lupinese 10 TFL1. It combines a small, affordable FPV drone with an autonomous terminal guidance system. That means the drone has an onboard computer and AI technology that takes control during the final phase of the flight. But it's very different from, say, the kind of AI that sits on those data centers that power clawed

or even kind of AI that does self-driving for your Tesla. Aznuk says the AI technology in his company, drones, uses simple tools to recognize images and make smart software. Which then allows you either to navigate autonomously without a human or to choose a target autonomously or to fly towards the target autonomously. Dozens of Ukrainian military units already use the Fourth Law's autonomous drone, which is named after the 20th century Ukrainian poet Anatoly Lupinis. He endured decades of so.

Soviet imprisonment and torture. The fourth law has named all of its weapons after Ukrainian intellectuals and artists killed or persecuted by Russians in the last century. It is important for us to help to resurrect those people. They're still with us. Their ideas are still with us, and they're now fighting back. The company's teams test the drones every day. We meet one team in an overgrown field outside Kiev. They've set up a fold-out table near a copse of trees and a hornet's nest. A slight sandy-haired man greets us. I'm head of the test and integration team.

So our main duties is integration of our autonomous system on the different kind of drones. He uses the military call sign stab. The company asked NPR not to reveal this location or the identities of those who were here for security reasons. Stab points to a drone. So you see here is our camera plus microcomputer inside. Oh there it is. Oh there it is. And all of the mind is here. The microcomputer inside the drone runs on a deep learning neural network that's been fed hours of combat footage. That's how it recognizes targets. What target is like vehicle, light armored vehicle, tank and flying object, etc.

The drone begins its flight guided by a pilot. He also asked us to use his call sign, Professor. The pilot is the one who selects the target. He guides the drone with a control stick. Professor checks a video monitor. There's a red flash. Okay, is it locking there? Yeah, it's locked and if you see,

the system are working by itself. The drone has locked onto the target. A dilapidated car that a company employee is driving along a dirt road. Professor puts down the control stick and the drone flies itself to the car. The microcomputer inside constantly runs algorithms to keep it on course. Stabbs says AI drones are useful because they're hard to jam and he insists there are safeguards in place so the drones don't go rogue. It's very obvious for the public to be concerned about... Back at the conference room, Gatoslav Ashnuk says it's obvious the public is concerned about the dangers of AI.

Any kind of tool can be used for good or for bad. And it's, in the end, it's the human that decides how to use that tool. And he says his company's AI-powered drones are not economists killer robots. They're very far from a terminator kind of skynet scenario, right? These are just sort of calculators. They're no more likely for a terminator uprising than a warehouse with artillery shells. He does, however, acknowledge that AI warfare is developing quickly. It's not unthinkable to imagine that some years in the future there will be drones,

that will be able to make their own decisions about designating something as a target or not. And Ukraine must keep up, he says. because Russia is also using AI-powered drones to attack. So if we're not able to react just as fast, we have lost. And obviously after we've lost, there is no way for us to argue about the ethics of AI. The most important thing he says is don't die. Joanna Kikisis and PR News, Kave. This episode was produced by Sophia Polisa Carr and Karen Zamora,

with audio engineering by Tiffany Vera Castro and Valentina Rodriguez-Sanchez. Our director is Jonas Adams. It was edited by Hannah Block and Timby Armius. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorney. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.