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 systems are redefining how military forces may pay modern war.
With each part in this battle rushing to secure a modern benefits, the Russian battle is , transforming , into a clash between normal forces that are both backed by growing numbers of intelligent and remote-controlled systems. Each attack has steadily , poured , more and more resources into developing this technology, buying to be a move ahead of the other.
Ukraine’s experience on the front lines reflects a shift toward robotic systems that strengthen or attempt to replace human operators in the most risky missions and in opposition to an enemy that is willing to deploy more and more manpower into major front assaults.
Ukrainian officials began to describe their nation as a “war test for the future” after Kyiv’s forces fielded but some intelligent and mechanical systems over the past three years. This is because fight in Ukraine offers the best environment for ongoing testing, evaluation, and refinement of like systems.
Numerous businesses in Europe and the United States have tested their robots and other devices in Ukraine. At this point in the fight, those companies are striving to achieve “battle-tested in Ukraine” certificates for their goods.
For instance, US defence technology firm  , Anduril , just started selling its new autonomous robots after successful testing carried out in Ukraine in October 2024. Russian and Western aircraft manufacturers are now working more closely together on both developing AI and drones. Through its Replicator  program, the US government is attempting to expedite the deployment of affordable automatic systems. Additionally, it is working closely with the private industry to examine Ukrainian systems and technologies before using them in upcoming conflicts.
Lately, US Army Chief of Staff General Randy George , noted , that the Ukraine conflict “has demonstrated the value of little, attritable robots on the field”. This fight implementation of relatively cheap platforms has provided the Pentagon an opportunity to observe how integrating cutting-edge software with robust drone technology can continue across the US Department of Defense, drawing , lessons , from the Russia-Ukraine war as the Pentagon prepares for potential future conflicts, including with , China.
For the first time in December 2024, Ukrainian forces successfully attacked Russian positions using only ground and first-person view drones, further developing how Ukraine is utilizing 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.
Although these were remote-controlled systems that still needed a significant human to operate them, Ukraine is now making progress by gradually putting more combat robots into use and eventually releasing more autonomous systems to the battlefield.
In September of this year, Ukraine also attacked a Russian trench with ground robots in Kursk Oblast, with numerous other instances of these systems being quickly developed and deployed 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.
The Russian military announced in December 2024 that it would establish an unmanned systems branch to better integrate its forces ‘ use of autonomous and robotic technologies and ensure that different military branches can take and codify lessons learned from combat in Ukraine.
Both nations assert that their respective militaries have used numerous AI developments in drones and other tactical and battlefield systems.
Ukraine has been a leader in the development and use of various unmanned systems and AI technologies across domains and mission types, three years into its conflict with Russian aggression. 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.
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.
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, to better understand how different kinds of robotic and autonomous systems are used in Ukrainian combat. Russia’s planned unmanned systems branch is likely to be at the epicenter of this initiative. 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. Concerning the use of drones capable of killing targets, Ukraine frequently prioritizes the need to survive and defend itself.
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 said to be accomplished with the aid of artificial intelligence algorithms. The evaluated data is , transmitted , to the military and law enforcement for follow-on actions.
Given that the Russian military is attempting to understand the Ukrainian battlefield, such data analysis efforts are likely occurring across a variety of systems, even though public information on their overall effectiveness is comparatively sparse. Similar initiatives are being made in the Russian defense sector, with a subsidiary of the Russian military industry Rostec claiming in 2024 that a neural network for optical drone detectors allegedly increases their detection range by 40 %.
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 numerous domestically developed AI-augmented systems to allow aerial drones to attack 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.
Such developments, 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 those targets, are likely to indicate a more limited AI role in aerial drones.
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 how difficult it is to forbid the development of AI for military purposes when national interests are in jeopardy and the outcome of wars are in dispute.
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 increase system autonomy, improve tactical decision-making, enable real-time operational support in combat zones, reduce crew risks, and reduce uncertainty due to the rapid processing of large amounts of unstructured data.
The technological arms race in this war continues to grow as Russia is determined to fight until Ukraine is conquered and Ukraine is resolute in defending its freedom. Each month in this protracted war brings new technological advancements and successes, with the innovation cycle being continuously pushed forward by new technologies that the adversary either copy or counter, causing a new round of innovation to bring about the newest discovery.
The development and deployment of these technologies in battle is closely monitored by Ukraine’s Western supporters. Mark Milley, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and retired Army general, predicted that up to one-third of the US military would be made up of robotic systems within the next ten to fifteen years, an assessment that was likely based on observations of technologies used 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 working toward a faster pace with the development of various battlefield drone and robotic systems as a result of their desire for precision, mass employment, overwhelming the adversary, resilience against countermeasures, and reducing risks to human lives. These advancements are having an impact on the battlefield at both the tactical and operational levels and are shaping how the battle will be conducted in the future.
Samuel Bendett is a Technology and National Security Program adjunct senior fellow with the Center for a New American Security. David Kirichenko is a Henry Jackson Society associate research fellow. He can be found on X @DVKirichenko.
This article, originally published by the Modern War Institute, is republished by Asia Times with permission. The authors ‘ opinions are those of themselves, and they do not represent the official positions of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.