THE SET-UP: War is changing … and it’s changing fast.
That’s because multiple militaries—Russian, North Korean, Iranian, American and European—have access to a live-fire laboratory where drones and artificial intelligence are returning valuable, real-world feedback to drone-makers. No need to model “game conditions” … the game is on!
This innovation-generating lab is located wherever Ukraine and Russia engage in battle. As you can see from this list compiled by Aljazeera, the drone-driven conflict has turned the war into one big lab:
Here is how things stand on Tuesday, July 22:
A large-scale Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv killed two people and wounded 15, including a 12-year-old, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The attack caused widespread damage, including when a drone hit the entrance to a subway station in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district, where people had taken cover.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 426 drones and 24 missiles in the overnight attack, making it one of Russia’s largest aerial assaults in months.
A Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region injured 11 people, including a five-year-old boy, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s Air Force said it downed or jammed 224 Russian drones and missiles, while another 203 drones disappeared from radars.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said that Russian air defence systems downed 132 Ukrainian drones on Monday.
The governor of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said that fragments of Ukrainian drones fell on a kindergarten and a fire station in the region’s port city of Berdyansk but there were no casualties.
The experiments can be small, like a First Person Video (FPV) drone jury-rigged by a Ukrainian solider to carry four shotgun barrels. Or the experiments can be grand enough to affect America’s Military-Industrial Complex, like defense contracting upstart Anduril parlaying its battlefield success into a 5 million-square-foot drone production facility in Ohio and a cooperative production agreement with German industrial giant Rheinmetall.
Armed with real-time data, video and quick battle damage assessments, Anduril is able to explore its products’ capabilities, understand and address limitations and deliver refined and upgraded weapons systems faster than ever. The tests are particularly fruitful because the parameters are randomly dictated by an actual “enemy” who is intent on neutralizing the drone. And A.I. systems get to “learn” from actual combat with real enemies. That alone must be worth the price of attrition.
War has always been an opportunity for innovation, and modern warfare has seen more than its share of opportunism. Wars may not be started for the sole purpose of testing a new weapon, but they might not stop if one or the other side has a new weapon they want to deploy … particularly an advanced weapon.
Stepping aside from the moral and ethic minefield of using war to innovate products, the simple fact is that war games and simulations cannot match the complexity of a hot war against a real-life enemy.
That probably explains why Anduril CEO Palmer Luckey went to X to write “Thank you, @realDonaldTrump!” one day after Trump announced the resumption of arms shipments to Ukraine on July 7. Luckey’s company is not only pushing the envelope on autonomous weapons, he’s pushing his way into the elite world of the “defense majors”—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon—and he, along with Alex Karp’s Palantir and Elon Musk’s interlocking cluster of companies, are exploiting this opportunity to pitch Silicon Valley to the Pentagon, among other agencies.
If Zuckerborg’s mantra for monetizing human relationships was “move fast and break things,” Palmer Luckey’s caveat might simply be to “break things in other countries.” The fast-moving CEO is, like Karp and Palantir founder Peter Thiel, obviously aware of the benefit of being a “defense major” … because there’s no greater guarantee in business than the guarantee that the United States is going to be at war somewhere for as long as the United States is a thing. - jp
TITLE: See How Drones Are Dominating Every Corner of the War in Ukraine
https://www.wsj.com/world/ukraine-russia-drone-war-adef7e49
EXCERPTS: On the sun-drenched eastern front of this grueling war, Ukrainian drones are doing more and more jobs, from killing Russian troops to evacuating casualties to bringing dinner to foxholes.
Around this city, some infantry from Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade have been stuck in their dugouts for three months. Rotating the troops must wait for fog and rain to block the view of Russian drones.
So Ukraine’s air and ground drones bring the men food, water and ammunition, said Lt. Col. Yehor Derevianko, a battalion commander in the brigade. “We even deliver burgers.”
He’s been fighting Russian forces in Ukraine’s east since 2014, and says the war is evolving faster than ever. Drones are now so dominant that they force everything else—infantry, armor, artillery, logistics and even trench design—to adapt to a sky full of buzzing robots.
The wiry commander leads the defense of his sector from a basement full of large screens under an abandoned apartment block. Men with laptops direct drone pilots to where Russian infantry are trying to infiltrate the fields and woodlands around the city.
In a secret bunker under acacia groves and sunflower fields, men of the Bulava drone unit are tinkering with technology to stay a step ahead of the Russians in a robotic arms race.
Serhiy Ignatukha, the unit’s leader, holds up one kind of answer to the Russians’ fiber-optic drones. It’s an FPV armed with four 12-bore shotgun barrels.
Recently, one such drone had a dogfight with a Russian FPV. Its shotguns missed, so it downed the enemy drone by ramming it and breaking its propellers, said a drone technician known by his call sign Udav.
The unit is also working with Ukrainian drone manufacturers on more sophisticated solutions, including FPV-borne lasers that can cut fiber-optic cables.
FPVs using artificial intelligence could become the next big thing, said Udav. He held up a drone with a tiny AI chipboard. Once a pilot has selected a moving target, the drone can complete the attack autonomously from up to 700 yards away, even if jamming blocks the signal.
Improved versions are coming out every few months. “This one is the sixth generation and it has had no failures,” Udav said.
“Previously, when you saw 15 Russian vehicles, it was scary. Now it’s fun,” he said. “Sadly it’s the same for the enemy’s drone units.”
A bomb maker with the unit used a 3-D printer to make drone-dropped mines. Costing $9 each to make, the mines stick in the ground, spray out several 26-foot-long tripwires with small anchors and wait for Russian infantry.
East of Kostyantynivka, men of the Alcatraz Battalion are fighting Russia’s infantry and trying to survive its drones. The unit, part of the 93rd Brigade, is made up of convicted criminals who have signed up to be assault troops. Honorable service gets a conditional release or pardon. The first missions last year went well, said men in the unit. But drones are exacting a growing toll.
Convicted thief Pavlo Shyptenko has survived four attacks by FPVs. He was rescuing a wounded comrade this spring when a quadcopter dropped a grenade on him. A tree branch broke the grenade’s fall, saving Shyptenko, but coin-sized bits of shrapnel still cut into his back and neck.
Full of adrenaline, he carried the wounded man to a car and only noticed a terrible pain when he sat down to drive, he said. Now he’s telling new recruits what to do if there’s a drone above them.
“Stay still and wait for the grenade drop. Then you have three to five seconds to run away,” he said, proudly wearing an Alcatraz unit T-shirt. If a suicide drone is trying to crash into you, wait and dive out of the way, he said.
The Alcatraz Battalion interviews applicants for suitability, and doesn’t take rapists or serial killers. But it has recruited some murderers. “We are also murderers,” said the deputy battalion commander, a professional officer known by the call sign Daredevil.
On a balmy evening, men from Alcatraz trained in the woods, practicing digging covered shelters capable of withstanding FPV hits. “This one is for a funeral,” Daredevil told the diggers of a weakly protected foxhole.
Daredevil carries a scar over his right eye from when a Russian shot him in a basement gunfight early in the war. “We came out of that basement. They didn’t.”
It’s a different war today, he said. “The lions from 2022-2023, who were real warriors, no longer exist,” he said. Heavy losses have reduced the quality of soldiers on both sides. “The men now are not capable of the same feats. Now it’s a war of drones.”
TITLE: North Korea’s Deadly Drone Bonanza Is Coming to a Peninsula Near You
https://warontherocks.com/2025/07/north-koreas-deadly-drone-bonanza-is-coming-to-a-peninsula-near-you/
EXCERPTS: As payment for the deployment of soldiers and arms transfers, Moscow has bestowed Pyongyang with a plethora of benefits, including economic, military, diplomatic, and technological aid. This cooperation has spurred a “common market of autocracies” leading to the joint development and proliferation of lethal technologies among American adversaries. Assistance from Russia has been key to help North Korea pursue its drone development objectives.
When Kim Jong Un visited Russia in September 2023, he was presented with a variety of gifts. Among these were five suicide attack drones and one reconnaissance drone provided by Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of the Primorsky region. While the number of these drones is insubstantial, their value lies in their technology. North Korea’s military industrial system is adept at reverse engineering.
In 2024, Kim ordered the “full-scale mass production” of suicide attack drones and also called for the utilization of AI in the drones. He said that “drones are achieving clear successes in big and small conflicts” and that the proliferation of drones “urgently calls for updating many parts of military theory.”
In February of this year, NHK reported that Moscow had agreed to provide Pyongyang with technical assistance for the mass production of multiple types of drones. Around the same time, North Korea dispatched a delegation of aviation officials to Moscow State Technical University of Civil Aviation’s “Technopark for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” which includes a training center for drone operators. There, they received a briefing about training drone pilots. The North Korean officials also attended an aviation expo containing exhibits on drone technology where they may have been able to make industry connections with suppliers.
Further details about the production agreement emerged this summer. According to a June 2025 interview with Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, commander of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate, Russia is helping North Korea to domestically produce the Garpiya and the Geran, long-range Russian kamikaze drones that are modeled after Iran’s Shahed-126 drone. These drones are an important long range standoff munition for Moscow, which produces thousands per month and employs them regularly to deadly effect in the war against Ukraine. This is also a notable development because it is the first known instance of Iranian-origin weaponry flowing to North Korea — throughout the decades-long illicit arms trade between the two countries, “Iran has been the buyer and North Korea has been the seller,” according to Bruce Becthol.
Russia also provided North Korea with a Pantsir mobile air defense system. The Pantsir is a “more modernized air defense system compared to its current inventory of legacy Russian systems.” In addition to drones, the Pantsir can be used against aircraft, cruise missiles, and precision munitions. Although the report said that “at least one” Pantsir vehicle was supplied, that could open the door to further shipments or Russian technology transfers to enable domestic manufacturing of similar platforms.
Pyongyang’s focus on drones reflects the leadership’s confidence that mass producing a variety of drones and outfitting them with the latest technology will significantly amplify its power projection in service of its strategic and political objectives.
First, if North Korea is able to produce effective homegrown versions of the Iranian-Russian suicide drones, the North Korean air force could potentially “hit targets anywhere in South Korea and potentially in huge volumes.” Russia is known to launch hundreds of these drones simultaneously. Massive volleys of the drones, especially if they successfully operationalize AI for dynamic targeting, may be able to “overwhelm the South’s air defenses, paving the way for attacks by other munitions.”
Second, drones fit nicely into North Korea’s strategic prerogatives because they are a powerful asymmetric capability. Just like ballistic missiles and cyber warfare, drones are cheaper to deploy than to defend against. A war of attrition therefore favors the attacker.
Third, drones could provide a badly needed boost to North Korean military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. Right now, North Korea has only one moderate resolution imagery satellite in orbit. But the strategic reconnaissance drone could “significantly increase the scope and timeliness of the nation’s situational awareness in and around the Korean Peninsula,” according to analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Fourth, another major weakness of the North Korean military is its air force, which is hamstrung by “aging aircraft, limited operational range, and lack of precision-guided weapons.” To overcome these limitations, the North Korean military is turning to a hybrid doctrine combining manned aircraft with the new drones. In May, the North Korean air force conducted a series of combat exercises integrating manned aircraft with reconnaissance and suicide drones, conducting live fire strikes in multiple terrain conditions at multiple ranges. Two specialized drone units have been created expressly for the purpose of developing drone integration tactics.
Fifth, the deployment to Kursk has provided the North Korean military with precious combat experience in perhaps the world’s most technologically advanced battlefield, accelerating its military modernization efforts. With regard to drones, North Korean military commanders have learned that maintaining an edge in the drone domain requires constant technological adaptation, agile deployment of new capabilities, and integration of electronic warfare units. To complement efforts in drone capabilities development, the Kim regime has also poured resources into training. Last summer, the Korean People’s Army’s five specially designated electronic warfare units engaged in a month-long series of command exercises around the country that included drone-relevant capabilities such as jamming enemy communication networks and real-time reconnaissance using advanced drones. In the winter, electronic warfare units conducted exercises utilizing “combat manuals that analyze drone tactics from the Russia-Ukraine war,” including instances of Russian units using jamming to disable and capture Ukrainian drones. The exercises used real examples of drone and counter-drone operations from the Russo-Ukrainian war, applying them to conditions that North Korean electronic warfare units could expert to encounter on the peninsula.
Sixth, the introduction of drone-enabled forward line of sight has revolutionized infantry tactics and North Korea has had a front row seat to the action. Put simply, drones compress “the time, coordination, and geography required to deliver violent force,” necessitating a total rethink of infantry doctrine. The Korean People’s Army’s early struggle to adapt to a drone-centric battlefield, gradual development of counter-drone tactics, and firsthand view of technological cat-and-mouse competition are all hard-won lessons that will inform its future approach to warfighting.
Last, drones will present a lucrative revenue-earning opportunity for the Kim regime. According to Daily NK, North Korea initiated inspections for drone exports in March of this year. The Kim regime is hoping to earn foreign currency by exporting drones to existing arms clients in the Middle East, Africa, and Russia. To facilitate sanctions evasion, North Korea’s manufacturers have deliberately omitted “country of origin” markings.
The caveat is that North Korea is still developing its drone technology and tactics. It’s unlikely that the North Korean military will deploy next-generation drones and counter-drone capabilities to the battlefield overnight. But their experience in Kursk and technology transfers from Russia have given this mission a dramatic boost.
TITLE: Hypersonics, AI, drone swarms: Pentagon pours $179 billion into R&D
https://taskandpurpose.com/tech-tactics/pentagon-research-development-budget/
EXCERPTS: The Pentagon’s proposed 2026 fiscal year budget comes in at more than one trillion dollars, and $179 billion of that is just for research, development, testing, and evaluation.
That money doesn’t go toward buying new jets, tanks, warships, or missiles. It funds the programs and technologies that could determine who wins or loses the next fight. At nearly 20% of the overall defense budget, this is the largest R&D request in Pentagon history and gives us an interesting look at where U.S. military planners think the future of warfare is headed.
A major theme in this year’s request is autonomous aviation. The Air Force’s loyal wingman program, centered around aircraft like the MQ-28 “Ghost Bat” and XQ-58 “Valkyrie,” is designed to field uncrewed aircraft that can fly alongside F-22s, F-35s, and even tankers and cargo aircraft to carry and deploy weapons, jam enemy electronics and sensors, and extend the reach of our own.
Other branches are pushing ahead on drone swarms under the “Replicator” initiative. This program, thrust ahead as a priority by the Pentagon’s recent announcement, is intended to produce thousands of cheap, easily-replaced drones to overwhelm enemy defenses, serve as scouts, and generally extend the reach of U.S. forces based on observations from Ukraine.
Nearly $450 million is being funnelled toward defending against hypersonics —more than double what was allocated last year. Systems like the Patriot and THAAD are incredibly capable, but their effectiveness against maneuverable missiles traveling at Mach 5 is unknown. They weren’t designed to defeat this threat, and so new interceptors and tracking satellites are needed.
The largest portion of this R&D budget, about $40 billion, is marked for classified projects. We obviously don’t know what specific projects are being funded through this, but there’s a good chance they include advanced drones, electronic warfare and signals intelligence systems, next-generation stealth platforms, and cyber capabilities. Previous graduates from the “black budget” include the F-117 Nighthawk, the RQ-170 Sentinel, and even the Sea Shadow experimental stealth ship.
We broke down these key programs and priorities and what they mean for the Pentagon’s plans for the future in our latest YouTube video.