Killer robots have arrived in Ukraine. They are cheap, destructive and so easy to fly that it is “boring”

New, mass-produced, computer-controlled drones that are very difficult to stop could change the rules of the game in the conflict with Russia.

Last spring, Ukrainian drones controlled by computers were already being tested. The (WSJ) tells how a pilot hid in a shelter on the front line of the conflict made a click on a tablet and saw the robot descend to a Russian ammunition truck.

“Let it burn”said one of the soldiers who was in the shelter. And it really burned: in a video transmitted inside the shelter and recorded by a reconnaissance drone (there is a camera that accompanies the robot), a cloud of smoke was observed.

The screen that controls these robots was designed by the American company, but other companies, including Ukrainian ones, have had success in projecting other “killer robots”which translate one on Ukraine’s part to defeat Russia in the conflict.

“None of this is new,” the founder and CEO of Auterion tells the WSJ, Lorenz Meier. But the difference now, “It’s the price.”

Kiev will receive tens of thousands of miniature computers from Auterion, known as Skynode, which are expected to arrive en masse on the battlefield at the beginning of next year, says the American newspaper.

Also, one of the largest Ukrainian drone companies, guaranteed that it will produce thousands of robots with autopilot starting this month. And there are other companies that are also increasing production.

This bet on technology to dethrone tanks and other weapons used by the Russians is a cheap alternative to missiles and projectiles more expensive artillery units, recalls the WSJ, which could help Kiev if the Trump administration cuts aid military support to the Ukrainian cause, as he promised.

“The technology has moved from concept to the battlefield, but the question is: will it exist in sufficient numbers to make an impact?” Samuel Bendett, collaborator in the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Ukrainian soldiers with drone da Vyriy Drone

But the innovations don’t stop there: as the WSJ suggests, they may even exist, according to videos circulating on the Internet, explosive drones guided through fiber opticswhich prevents interference and increases video transmission quality.

“The drones, which are fast and agile, have four rotors and are the size of a plate of food,” says the American media outlet. They are known as first-person view drones, or FPVs, and have explosives attached that detonate on impact.

Until now, Russia was capable of shooting down 4 out of 5 Ukrainian dronesmuffling the signal between the controller and the robot. Now, it will be very difficult to stop these aircraft: the control system is integrated on the drone using software loaded on a minicomputer produced at low cost — very low costmore precisely 14 euros.

Auterion was founded after the Russian invasion in 2022 by Oleksiy Babenko, 26 years old, “a motorcycle fanatic who studied sociology”, as the WSJ describes him, who told him that “best of all is that it’s very cheap”and that “we cannot place a high-priced video connection”.

The autopilot mode of these aircraft can now be activated well away from the short range of the jammers. Autopilot drones can hit objects behind obstacles such as hillsas they do not need to maintain a signal with the pilot in the attack phase.

This innovation could be the “game changer” for Ukrainian performance on the front line. To Auterion, there were even those who said, after trying the new technology, that Flying these drones was so easy that it “got boring”.