A six-bladed “Baba Yaga” military drone flies over the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine in August 2025. Ukraine recently announced that its fully autonomous drones had killed Russian soldiers during a test in 2024. (Shutterstock/Jose Hernandez Camera 51)

Ukraine’s Drones Can Now Kill Without a Human in the Loop

Share this link on Facebook

Share this page on X (Twitter)

Share this link on LinkedIn

Share this page on Reddit

Email a link to this page

A Ukrainian drone developer recently announced that AI-controlled drones had killed Russian soldiers without human oversight—a new, and not entirely positive, milestone in modern warfare.

It is no secret that the battlefield in Ukraine has produced some cutting-edge weaponry. From kamikaze drones to homegrown ballistic missiles, the war in Ukraine has fathered many new weapons systems.  

But now that the Ukrainian military has revealed the usage of an unsettling new development: an autonomous killer drone capable of executing its mission from start to finish—patrolling a section of the battlefield, identifying a Russian soldier, flying to his position, and detonating its explosive—without human input. 

Ukraine’s “Terminator” Drone: An Autonomous Killing Machine  

According to a senior Ukrainian defense industry official, the Ukrainian........

© The National Interest