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Hundreds of AI-controlled robots operating in unison, talking to each other to autonomously attack targets — a dystopian vision of the future of war that Ukraine’s defence industry wants to make a reality.<\/p>\n
Four years into the Russian invasion, the idea — known as swarm drones — is one of the hottest topics in military tech in a country that describes itself as the world-leader in drone warfare.<\/p>\n
“There is a huge interest,” military expert Yury Fedorenko told the audience at the recent Drone Autonomy conference, held in an undisclosed location in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.<\/p>\n
“No matter who you speak to, they always say: show them to us. where are they, we want to see!”\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n
The conference was organised by Iron Cluster, a group of defence groups operating out of Lviv.<\/p>\n
The prospect of drone swarms, groups of drones that can act together and fulfil set tasks without human intervention, has triggered both anxiety and excitement.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been talking about swarm technology for a very long time, and we in the military have been waiting for it even longer,” said Volodymyr “Colt”, the head of civil-military cooperation at Ukraine’s 412th brigade.<\/p>\n
“The only question is when it will happen,” he added.<\/p>\n
– ‘A few years’ away –<\/p>\n
Ukrainian military and defence industry figures told AFP Kyiv had made progress in getting the much-hyped technology off the ground.<\/p>\n
Others cautioned it remains some way off and that swarm drones were just one part — albeit an eye-catching one — of the much broader race toward autonomous warfare.<\/p>\n
The appeal is clear.<\/p>\n
The swarms would allow a few operators to deploy dozens or hundreds of attack craft simultaneously — overwhelming enemy defences and helping Ukraine’s army offset Russia’s manpower advantage.<\/p>\n
“The main purpose is to save the lives of our servicemen,” Andrii Lebedenko, deputy commander-in-chief, told AFP.<\/p>\n
“Today we have such projects. They’re not large-scale, but they’re growing… mass deployment is possible in the coming years,” Lebedenko said. <\/p>\n
– ‘Valid target’ –<\/p>\n
Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has championed the use of advanced technology to fend off Russian attacks, including launching the Defense AI Center A1.<\/p>\n
Its head, Danylo Tsvok, told AFP “drone swarms are currently in the testing phase … there are a lot of things that we can’t say”.<\/p>\n
Swarmer, a Ukrainian-US company, has emerged as a leader in the field, listing on the US Nasdaq exchange earlier this year.<\/p>\n
US CEO Alex Fink<\/p>\n
told AFP the company had been deploying early swarm technology in combat since April 2024. <\/p>\n
Its systems can autonomously deploy multiple drones to an area, after which human pilots step in to manually engage a target, or\u00a0operators select targets and the drones carry out the strikes autonomously.<\/p>\n
“It’s definitely not at the point where we can trust technology to make strategic decisions or even make tactical decisions about what’s a valid target,” Fink said in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n
“We don’t want our systems to make that decision. We want the humans to be in charge.”<\/p>\n
– ‘Manhattan Project’ –<\/p>\n
At the AI defence conference in Lviv, there was some level of scepticism.<\/p>\n
“Drone swarms are totally overhyped… because they make for a good sci-fi story and a visual image,” said Yaroslav Azhnyuk, head of the Fourth Law, which specialises in drone autonomy.<\/p>\n
Autonomy, he argued, was about more than just drone swarms. It covered everything from navigation, target selection and attack execution — and could apply to all kinds of drones.<\/p>\n
He compared autonomy to the development of Microsoft Word — concentrating on swarms was like obsessing over the button that makes text italic, instead of the whole programme.<\/p>\n
“We’re focusing on massively scalable full autonomy,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This is the Manhattan Project of our era,” he added — a reference to the US WWII initiative that produced the first nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
“Imagine if either the Nazis or the Russians got the nuclear bomb first. That would have been a very, very different world,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Now imagine if they get the full autonomy first,” he said<\/p>\n
Russia has set AI and drones as its top military priorities.<\/p>\n
It has “likely fielded a fully autonomous unmanned system in combat”, according to an April 2026 report by Kateryna Bondar, an expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.<\/p>\n
Anton Melnyk, co-founder of MITS Capital, set up to fund Ukraine’s defence industry,was blunt about the stakes involved.<\/p>\n
“Either we will achieve this \u2013- the Armed Forces of Ukraine, together with various NATO partners \u2013- or the enemy will.”<\/p>\n
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