Russia’s War, Artificial Intelligence, and the Race to Delegate Killing

In the current “war of attrition” phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or simply drones) of various types are responsible for 70-80% of all casualties and injuries on both sides.

The logic of the war of attrition and the increasing use of UAV technologies have created a self-perpetuating spiral loop. Because of the omnipresent drones now controlling the ever-widening “kill zone” from above, Russian and Ukrainian armies have largely switched to employing small mobile groups of military personnel when invading or liberating territories, which makes strategic breakthroughs on any side of the war almost impossible.

This may help explain the reasoning behind Ukraine’s expanding deep strikes on Russian logistics and energy targets, as well as Russia’s tactic of terrorising Ukrainian civilians. Both sides have long settled on the idea that a strategic breakthrough can happen not in the “kill zone” but elsewhere. Ukraine strives to undermine Russian material capacities to wage its war of aggression, while Russia seeks to crush Ukraine’s morale and social resilience.

But the difficulty of achieving a major success on the battlefield has also led to the spiralling development of UAV technologies, primarily driven by both sides’ advances in electronic warfare, namely jamming of radio signals between the operator and the drone.

While not the original inventors of the relevant technologies, Russia and Ukraine developed – or rather elaborated – two major solutions to the problem of jamming simultaneously.