Kateryna Bondar
Introduction
To what extent are modern unmanned systems truly autonomous, and how significantly does AI enhance their autonomy in the war in Ukraine? What are the paths for transforming military unmanned systems from ambitious theoretical concepts into practical, AI-enabled battlefield tools? What technological, operational, and strategic barriers still prevent the realization of fully autonomous warfare?
This paper explores these questions by analyzing Ukraine’s innovative deployment of unmanned systems and assessing the role of AI in enhancing their effectiveness in contested environments. Drawing on dozens of interviews with Ukrainian military officials and Ukrainian and U.S. defense technology manufacturers, this analysis begins by reviewing the Ukrainian military’s broader vision of military strategy and technology development. It clarifies the main definitions related to autonomy and autonomous weapons systems (AWSs) and then outlines the Ukrainian military’s long- and short-term perspectives on the future battlefield, though these views have not yet been formalized into an official strategy.
Building on insights from these interviews and acknowledging that current technology cannot yet support fully autonomous missions, this paper describes advancements in three essential functions—intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); automatic target recognition (ATR); and autonomous navigation—showing how these developments steer the battlefield toward greater AI-enabled autonomy.
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