Both private and public schools in tech regions are limiting the use of tech in classrooms. But will low-income districts be able to follow suit?

German Gil spends most of his waking hours looking at screens. Since moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015, the software engineer has bounced between startups and giants including Netflix, Facebook and GitHub.

But when it came to the education of his daughter, Victoria, he wanted her to have a different experience, one in which his “kid could be a kid”.

Captured Russian soldiers have a rule for one stretch of the Kupiansk front: go anywhere, but not there.

That stretch is the “safety corridor” the “Orion” unit of Ukraine’s Offensive Guard brigade “Pomsta” says it has built for its ground robots. The zone is so lethal that, by the unit’s count, 88% of attacking Russians are killed before they reach their positions, and Russian armor cannot get within 25 kilometers, the military outlet ArmyInform reports.

Behind that shield, the unit says its ground robots have run dozens of fully autonomous missions through the most dangerous ground on the axis, with a success rate of 99.57%. The results made Orion the top-ranked unit for effectiveness on the South-Kupiansk axis in September within Ukraine’s battlefield management system, DELTA.

“You can go anywhere, just not into the Orion zone”

The claim that the Russians now avoid the sector, the unit says, comes from them themselves.

“Prisoners admit in interviews: 'You can go anywhere, just not into the Orion zone.' Eighty-eight percent of the enemy is destroyed before reaching their positions, and Russian equipment cannot approach closer than 25 kilometers,” the unit says.

That is what opens the corridor. Where a human supply run would be a death sentence, a robot can cross, and cross again.

The quiet blood of the front

The point, the unit says, is to take the soldier out of the deadliest job on the front: carrying ammunition and the wounded across open fire.

“We broke the stereotype that supplying the army takes truck convoys and hundreds of soldiers under targeted fire. Our robotic systems are the ‘quiet blood’ of the front,” Vladyslav Zolotarov, an officer in the unit’s staff control group, says.

When Russia thinks our positions are depleted, a tracked platform quietly comes in at night and brings in a ton of ammunition.

In September alone, the unit says, its wheeled and tracked robots ran 85 of the hardest combat missions and hauled more than 30,000 kilograms of cargo. Its evacuation record is the line it is proudest of: four missions pulling wounded soldiers out by robot, all four successful, not one man lost.

Ukraine has bet heavily on this kind of machine, aiming to field 50,000 ground robots to keep its troops out of the drone-ruled kill zone.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met a Lockheed Martin team led by Orlando Sanchez Jr., head of its aeronautics division, in Kyiv on 19 October, the talk was of Patriot interceptors and of repairing the Ukrainian air force's small but growing fleet of ex-European F-16 fighters inside the country. Lockheed designed the F-16 and still builds it.

But the Lockheed officials may have had other things on their minds. They gave Zelenskyy a scale model of a new and improved F-16 variant in Ukrainian livery, according to a photo posted by the MilitaryNewsUA account.

In late September, Ukraine's air force commander, Lt. Gen. Anatolii Kryvonozhko, and Lockheed discussed a possible move to newer F-16s. Now we have a clearer idea what those F-16s might look like—and what they might be capable of. The model Lockheed officials gave to Zelenskyy appears to be based on the Block 70/72 version of the classic supersonic fighter that Lockheed manufactures at its factory in Greenville, South Carolina.

It's a world-class jet. But a pricey batch of factory-fresh Block 70/72s isn't actually at the top of the Ukrainian air force's wish list. Not as long as the air force's existing warplanes lack munitions.

The Block 70/72 boasts a better radar, more fuel capacity, and a tougher airframe compared to older F-16 models, which have been flying since the late 1970s. The F-16 is still one of the most numerous fighter types in US Air Force service. Surplus 1980s-vintage F-16s from Denmark and the Netherlands make up the bulk of the Ukrainian air force's front-line fleet. Norway's six are still being refurbished, and Belgium's are coming.

Whether Ukraine ever gets new F-16s is anyone's guess. Kyiv would need to pay around $100 million per copy, or find an ally to finance the purchase. Either could be a heavy lift. And to be sure, Ukraine has options as it rebuilds its battered air force. Sweden is donating 16 older Saab Gripens, the first due early next year, and Kyiv plans to buy 20 newer ones. Kyiv has negotiated to buy 16 Dassault Rafales from France, which may not arrive until 2028. Belgium has promised as many as 53 older F-16s, the last of them perhaps not until 2029.

Welcome jets

But new Block 70/72 F-16s would be welcome. The Block 70/72 builds on what already makes the F-16 great: its agility, flexibility, reliability, excellent electronic warfare systems, and compatibility with a wide array of munitions.

Where the Block 15 Mid Life Update F-16s Ukraine currently flies have the older analog AN/APG-66(V2) radar, the Block 70/72 has a digital APG-83 active electronically scanned array radar. It can also carry overwing conformal fuel tanks for extra range.

Perhaps most exciting for the Ukrainian air force, a newly made Block 70/72 is good for 12,000 hours of flight: enough for about 30 years at 400 flying hours a year. An aging Block 15 has a structural life of about 8,000 hours, and Ukraine's jets fly hard. Zelenskyy has said about half of them spend long stretches abroad for repairs, many at Sabena Aerospace Engineering in Belgium, a process that can take months.

Newer F-16s require less maintenance. They can fly and fight more often. In that sense, 50 Block 70/72s are worth more than 50 Block 15s.

But the availability of airframes isn't the biggest problem in the 107th Aviation Wing, the Ukrainian air force's sole F-16 unit. The wing is desperately low on air-to-air missiles. Its pilots often resort to gunning down Russian drones and cruise missiles with the F-16's built-in 20-mm cannon—a risky tactic given how close a fighter must get to its target to make use of its gun.

While a few billion dollars' worth of fresh F-16s could keep the 107th Aviation Wing in fighting shape for decades to come, fresh airframes aren't actually the most urgent priority. Given a choice between getting new F-16s or getting substantial supplies of missiles for its old F-16s, the wing would surely opt for the latter.

Explore further

Belgium’s 10 F-16s bring Ukraine’s promised fleet to about 100 jets. Fewer than 40 are flying, as Russia’s jet drones run them ragged

Ukraine now builds far more weapons than it can afford to buy. A year ago, it promised to sell the surplus abroad and turn the proceeds back into its own army. However, 12 months later, that promise has barely materialized: a state fee of up to 30% is pricing Ukrainian arms out of foreign markets, and no one can say how much the army has actually gained, said Ihor Fedirko, executive director of the Ukrainian Council of Armorers.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the resumption of controlled weapons exports in October 2025, resting it on four promises: 1) sell what Ukraine makes beyond its own needs, 2) channel part of the proceeds into a special fund for the army, 3) open export offices in Europe and the US, and 4) establish joint ventures abroad.

The surplus is real: Ukraine's defense output is projected to reach $55 billion in 2026, far beyond what the state can finance. A year on, Fedirko checked each promise in turn.

1) Export of surpluses: rules that strangle businesses

On 1 July 2026, the government approved rules for controlled arms exports. They shortened the maximum application review period from 90 to 30 days, but also introduced an export fee: 20% for finished products and technologies, and 30% for components. For finished products exported under the special procedure, the contract value must be at least $334,000.

In September, the Ukrainian Council of Armorers, together with other associations, proposed a zero rate, no advance collection of the fee, refunds for deals that fall through, and simplified test shipments. The industry was promised that its amendments would be taken into account and that the resolution would be rewritten.

Even in early October, however, the rules still needed work. According to Fedirko, the new mechanism has effectively not started working. Whether it can bring in additional funds for defense depends on how acceptable the export terms are to manufacturers.

Fedirko says, though, that judging by current decisions, the state intends to keep the export fee.

“The industry is ready to discuss its contribution to defense financing. But the rate must be economically justified,” he says.

2) Procurement for the Ukrainian military: balance is only being established

He adds that the Ukrainian Council of Armorers intends to push for a rate significantly lower than 20%, one that would let companies fulfill contracts and invest in production.

With such high rates, Fedirko says, the competitiveness of Ukrainian weapons on foreign markets is in question, as is the ability to send even small test batches to potential buyers.

“The fundamental requirement is post-payment: after the contract has actually been fulfilled and the manufacturer has been paid. A company should not pay the state in advance a share of income it has not yet received,” he says.

He added that, given all this, the real export figures remain unclear, as does how much exports have actually brought the military.

“The military and manufacturers must feel the benefit of exports. I sincerely hope that next year will bring much better results,” he says.

In addition, on 12 October, the Ukrainian Parliament passed bill No. 15400 in the first reading. It provides for crediting the export fee to a special fund directed to the Ministry of Defense: 50% for the procurement, modernization, and repair of weapons and equipment, and 50% for the pay of Armed Forces personnel.

The bill has not yet been adopted, but Fedirko says he expects “final adoption and launch of the mechanism.”

3) Export offices: offices in Germany and Denmark

On 3 November, the Ukrainian government named the first cities for export offices: Berlin and Copenhagen. On 15 December, it again spoke of preparing an office in Berlin. In reality, Fedirko says he does not know the office’s status, and it likewise remains unclear how companies can apply to it and how many contracts it has helped close.

4) Joint ventures abroad: There are concrete results in this area

According to Fedirko, eight joint ventures have been created, five of which are already supplying products to Ukraine. He stresses that this is the result of work by Ukrainian companies, foreign partners and the state, and that it deserves recognition.

As early as February 2026, the authorities spoke of plans to create ten joint ventures in Europe within a year. At the same time, they announced Quantum Frontline Industries in Germany, with a planned annual capacity of 10,000 drones for Kyiv.

Beyond the number of ventures and deliveries, however, it is important to understand how other manufacturers can join the Build with Ukraine program.

“Who accepts applications, by what criteria are decisions made, and what support does a company receive?” Fedirko asks.

In other words, joint ventures are already delivering results, but the rules of participation and the state support mechanism must be clear to companies that want to develop production abroad.

Russia's latest jet-propelled Geran-4 and Geran-5 one-way attack drones fly at 500 km/h or more, nearly three times as fast as an older, propeller-driven Geran-2.

That's too fast for many of Ukraine's air defenses. In particular, the inexpensive interceptor drones that Ukrainian forces deploy by the thousand.

Russia launched more than 2,700 jet Gerans at Ukraine in September, and Ukraine is shooting down only about 55% of them, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The speed disparity is a big part of the problem.

Ukrainian forces are scrambling for new defenses against the speedy Gerans. Among the best is actually a Ukrainian take on the Geran-4 and Geran-5: a fast, jet-propelled one-way attack drone that the Ukrainians have modified for air-to-air use.

Against jet drones, the air-to-air Bars have a hit rate of around 30%, Zelensky said during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Kyiv on 4 October. "The Bars have shown positive results," Zelensky said. "They currently have the highest percentage. Others are also catching up."

Explore further

Did Ukraine just unleash its first Bars cruise missiles? A 500 km strike deep inside Russia suggests it

In July, Ukraine and Germany agreed to jointly produce Bars, with Germany financing the first phase. Ukraine has reportedly been launching Bars at targets on the ground since at least the summer of 2025. But it was only recently that clear photos and videos of the drones have circulated.

Over the weekend, Ukraine’s 1021st Anti-Aircraft Missile and Artillery Brigade released footage of one jet drone hunting another. Observers identified the interceptor as a Bars and its target as a Geran-5. After launching from an elevated ramp with help from a rocket booster, the drone's operator—seeing what the drone saw through a front-facing infrared camera—steered the drone toward the Russian drone, possibly destroying it.

Exactly how the operator controlled the Bars—whether by satellite or mesh radio or some other command and control system—is unclear. Equally unclear: what kind of warhead a Bars would employ in the air-to-air role. Many smaller interceptor drones lack warheads. Instead, they simply slam directly into their targets, wrecking them in the collision.

Mystery drone

Bars isn't small. It likely packs an explosive warhead. Potentially one that the operator can remotely trigger when the interceptor passes near its target.

Bars is adaptable. Its maker has reworked it from a 22-kg warhead and a 700-km range to a 60-kg warhead and a stated range of more than 1,000 km, and a heavier variant can carry a 105-kg warhead.

In the air-to-air interceptor role, long range is terribly important but speed is everything. There's an obvious way for the Ukrainians to boost the Bars' speed from its reported 700 km/h top speed to potentially even faster. They could shrink the drone's warhead and its fuel load, making it lighter in order to make it faster.

That may explain how a Bars can chase down a Geran-5 even as the Russians, by one Ukrainian analyst's estimate, try to push the Geran-5 toward 700 km/h or more.

Explore further

Turkey’s Korkut guns now shoot down Russian drones over Ukraine. Almost half of the jet-powered Shaheds still get through

Cost is important, too. Russia churns out Gerans for an estimated $100,000 or so per drone. The cheaper the drone, the more copies the Russians can fling at Ukrainian cities. If it takes three or more interceptor drones to take down each of those 2,700 jet Gerans, Ukraine may need to deploy 8,000 to 10,000 interceptors a month.

Ukraine already builds more than 2,000 Bars a month, its maker says, but mostly in strike versions. How many go to air defense, and how much each costs, isn't public.

The supply of small jet engines could be a constraint. “Engines are a key element; we really import them in large quantities,” Zelensky said in an interview with Financial Times. "There are also domestically produced engines, but there are not enough of them.” A Ukrainian-made engine for Bars passed final tests in September.

Belgium has announced it will accelerate the delivery of surplus Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters to Ukraine. Instead of delivering three flyable F-16s before the end of the year, Brussels will ship 10.

It's unclear how many will be flyable. Previously, Belgian officials explained the first seven secondhand F-16s would include just three airworthy examples. The other four would be broken down for spare parts.

It's good news for Ukraine, but hardly cause for nationwide celebration. The handful of flyable F-16s that should arrive in the coming two months could make good recent F-16 losses. But those shipping-soon Belgian F-16s won't actually grow Ukraine's F-16 fleet by much, if at all.

The dozens of supersonic F-16s in action in Ukraine fly often and fight hard. They shoot down Russian drones and cruise missiles, tangle with Russian warplanes, and lob precision glide bombs at Russian forces on the ground. Russia launched about 2,000 jet-powered drones at Ukraine in September, up from some 350 in June, and F-16s are among the few weapons fast enough to catch them, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board noted. Every 300 flying hours, each jet must go abroad for a lengthy inspection.

Explore further

Ukraine loses another F-16 to onboard emergency

The main constraint on the pace of F-16 sorties, besides maintenance demands and the availability of trained pilots, is munitions: running low or out of air-to-air missiles and glide bombs, the F-16s routinely aim their 20-mm guns at Russian targets. But even 20-mm ammunition sometimes runs low.

The busy F-16s and their equally busy pilots need reinforcement. But reinforcements are slow coming. Belgium is only slightly accelerating its F-16 shipments amid reports it will eventually give Ukraine all 53 F-16s it's gradually retiring as new Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighters arrive to re-equip the Belgian air force.

Further complicating the picture, Norway's six F-16s, promised in 2023, were still being refurbished in Belgium this spring. Some arrived there in pieces.

Yes, Ukraine got 24 fight-ready F-16s from the Netherlands and most of the 19 Denmark promised. But it's lost five of those jets since 2024. And others are so worn out from relentless flying that they're badly in need of maintenance. The Belgian firm Sabena, which services Ukrainian F-16s, has struggled to keep up, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said about half of the jets spend long stretches abroad for repairs. That slows the return of repaired planes and further squeezes the front-line force.

One wing, too few jets

In short, it's possible the Ukrainian air force's 107th Aviation Wing, its sole F-16 unit, has fewer than 40 ready-to-fight F-16s. Those 53 Belgian F-16s will help grow the wing, but piecemeal. Ukraine should expect a handful of operational jets from Belgium this year. Under a schedule from May, the last 27, half the total, may not arrive until 2029.

To be clear, additional F-16s support the 107th Aviation Wing. The Netherlands sold 18 of its old F-16s to Romania for a token price in order to equip a training squadron, funded by a consortium of Ukraine's allies, that feeds trained pilots to the 107th Aviation Wing. But these 18 jets aren't available for front-line use. They don't even legally belong to Ukraine.

Explore further

Ukraine is running short of its best missiles for hunting Russia’s jet drones. Now MiG-29s are firing 1970s weapons

The delays in supplies of combat-ready F-16s matter because the Ukrainian air force is under stress. Its last few dozen ex-Soviet warplanes, including Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27 fighters, are even older and wearier than the ex-European F-16s are. And they've suffered staggering losses in the air and on the ground in nearly 56 months of hard fighting in the wider war.

The air force does have a few ex-French Dassault Mirage 2000s that are at least as capable as the F-16s, but France has donated only a handful of the supersonic jets—and one has crashed. Any further supplies of Mirage 2000s could be complicated by the French presidential election in April 2027. The leading far-right and far-left parties are both friendly toward Russia and hostile to Ukraine.

Some relief is coming, although not quickly. Sweden has pledged 16 surplus JAS-39C/D Gripen fighters to the Ukrainian war effort; the first of these could arrive early next year. Later on, Ukraine also plans to buy 20 newer JAS-39E/Fs. Kyiv has also negotiated to purchase 16 new Rafale fighters from Paris, but the soonest these could arrive is 2028.

For now, F-16s are the main solution to Ukraine's air defense problems. Kyiv surely wishes it had more of them, sooner.

Amid worries about children’s relationship to tech, the solution is often spending more time talking openly with each other

We have become obsessed with the idea that screens are destroying human connection.

The evidence seems to be everywhere. Each week headlines warn of teenagers addicted to phones, a loneliness epidemic and the dangers of AI. The release of The Social Reckoning leads us to ask, “How bad were those guys at Meta?” and then ultimately wonder, “How bad am I if I still use Instagram?” In our day-to-day, we observe workers eating lunch alone while scrolling and friends choosing online games over offline gatherings.

Bot traffic has really reduced in the wake of an attack on a Russian internet company – but it doesn’t tell the full story

The robots Ukraine wants to throw into its deadliest fights should cost as little as $10,000 each, Mykhailo Fedorov says. The former defense minister has set out the first stage of his Army of Robots: cheap, simple humanoid-like machines that would take over an infantry's most dangerous jobs, with tens of thousands needed, he said on Telegram, citing his own interview with Forbes.

On 26 September, Fedorov, who continues to work on military tech reforms despite his sudden and unexpected dismissal, announced the creation of the Army of Robots.

Humanoid robots would carry ammunition and pull out the wounded, lay and clear minefields, scout, hold positions, and strike, taking the roles that today cost soldiers their lives.

Potential need amounts to thousands

"Our main goal is to save lives. A human should not take risks where a machine can do the job," Fedorov says.

At the first stage, it will not be a classic humanoid but a simpler humanoid-like robot that can be produced quickly and scaled up, he adds.

Such a machine should perform some of an infantryman's tasks directly on the battlefield.

Today, such platforms cost $40–70 thousand on average. For mass use in war, Ukraine needs something much cheaper: the target is $10–20 thousand per unit, he believes.

"The potential need is tens of thousands of such machines," Fedorov continues.

Next come prototypes

The former defense minister adds that he and his team are already working with teams that have ready-made MVPs and are designing solutions.

"Next come prototypes, simulations, model training, and finding the right combination of hardware and software," he explains.

The Army of Robots is not a single product but an ecosystem that will unite companies, startups, engineers, R&D, and capital around the robotization of the front.

"Our task is to get from prototype to mass product as quickly as possible," he adds.

Robots will not replace armored vehicles on the battlefield, says a company that builds both. Ground robots are a new tool that lets Ukraine distribute risk more smartly, but they cannot do everything a crewed armored vehicle can, above all pulling wounded soldiers out under fire, says Ukr Armo Tech's chief executive Hennadii Khirhii, in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

Ukraine has a serious shortage of armored vehicles, from evacuation carriers to tracked fighting vehicles, with the focus shifting to hulls that offer heavy mine protection and built-in electronic warfare. For medical-evacuation armor alone, Khirhii says, the deficit is often put at 80 percent.

Robots can ease some of that, hauling ammunition and supplies to the front without risking a crew, but they are a complement, not a substitute, a view frontline commanders also confirm.

Robots share the load, not replace it

Where a robot can do the job, Khirhii says, there is no sense sending in heavy armor and the people inside it to face danger. For carrying ammunition or food, unmanned ground vehicles are useful. But evacuating the wounded is different: that usually needs, at least for the second leg, a protected medical vehicle in which care can begin on the move, with room for transfusions and resuscitation that a robot's capsule cannot provide.

"A UGV doesn't cancel the armored vehicle, just as the drone didn't cancel artillery," he says.

The limits show at evacuation

Ukraine has leaned hard into robotic logistics and casualty evacuation, running more than 100,000 such missions this year to keep medics and crews off exposed roads, but the robots themselves now draw Russian drone and artillery fire, and they cannot replace medical personnel.

One commander has called ground robots too slow for evacuation and easy targets, arguing brigades still need staffed evacuation teams and light-armored vehicles.

Commanders want both

The lesson from the front is not robots instead of armor, but robots alongside it. What matters, Khirhii says, is a smart combination of machines for each mission, with people's safety and the task's practicality first. The front today needs both armored vehicles and ground robots, he continues, and it needs a great amount of both.

Ukrainian defense-tech firm BlueBird Tech has begun renting out its Hrets electronic-warfare jammers by the day, in what it calls Ukraine's first such service, the company said on 29 September 2026. Electronic-warfare gear—the devices that scramble the radio links attack drones rely on—is normally bought outright, renting lets a user take a system for a single mission or test it before committing.

The pull is a war where cheap first-person-view (FPV) drones have made portable jamming a routine need, one many users face only for a stint.

How renting works

After paperwork and a deposit equal to the device's full price, the system is handed over, and that handover counts as day one. Each day's rent is then drawn from the deposit, return the system working and undamaged and the renter gets back what is left. Keep it long enough that the fees add up to the full price, and the jammer passes to the renter automatically. Renting is open to individuals, companies, charities, and volunteer groups.

Three models, and what each one jams

The Hrets XL is a modular FPV jammer built from two to 10 working modules, priced case by case. The vehicle-mounted Hrets 4MC is an anti-drop system that jams DJI Mavic-type quadcopters—the drones Russian forces use to drop munitions—for about $56 a day. The lightweight Hrets 4M jams FPV drones at a stated 70 to 400 meters for about $67 a day. One Ukrainian firm has even packed detection, decoding, and jamming of an FPV signal into a single device.

Bulgaria gave Ukraine 110 BTR-60 armored personnel carriers. They are 1960s vehicles, too thinly armored to carry infantry anywhere near a front line patrolled by explosive drones. So Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps found another use for them during Operation Vivaldi, its counteroffensive north of Lyman. Fill one with anti-tank mines, rig it for remote control, drive it at a Russian bunker, and set it off.

Packing potentially dozens of TM-62 anti-tank mines, the speedy BTR-60s become what's called vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or VBIEDs. Once a favorite weapon of insurgents battling US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, VBIEDs have found a new niche in Russia's wider war on Ukraine as unmanned demolition systems.

"To break through the enemy's defenses, the 3rd Army Corps employed its own invention, Soviet BTR-60s converted into robotic kamikaze complexes," the corps stated. "They were used to demolish the enemy's strongest fortifications." If an enemy strongpoint is too heavily protected to bomb from the air but exposed to attack from the ground, send in a VBIED.

The Russians were the first to deploy vehicular IEDs in the current war, but the Ukrainians may have mastered the tactic. It's one thing to rig an explosives-filled MT-LB tractor or T-55 tank to roll straight forward without direct human control, as the Russians once did. It's another to rig an explosive BTR-60 to maneuver before going off, as the 3rd Army Corps' VBIEDs clearly did.

On 28 September, announcing the close of Vivaldi's third phase, the 3rd Army Corps released drone footage depicting one of the explosive BTRs blasting a Russian strongpoint north of the town of Lyman. The sheer scale of the explosion is testimony to the VBIED's destructive potential. And the trail the BTR leaves in the grass in the heavily edited video indicates the Ukrainians can steer their VBIEDs around obstacles and guide them to precision strikes.

Why it gets there

A slow wheeled vehicle crossing open ground toward a fortified position should not survive the trip. In most sectors it would not. What makes the tactic work north of Lyman is a condition the 3rd Army Corps built into Vivaldi before its assault groups moved: Ukrainian air defense and electronic warfare threw a protective dome over the battle area, blinding Russian drones so they could not read the operation's design or strike what was moving through it.

Robots have played critical roles in each phase of Vivaldi. Surveillance drones have watched from overhead. One-way attack drones have pummeled Russian positions and supply lines. Heavy bomber drones have not only dropped bombs, they've also airlifted explosive unmanned ground vehicles into position so the UGVs can roll right through the front doors of Russian bunkers.

The self-exploding BTR-60s are too big to airlift, but that's the point. A small UGV might carry a few tens of kilograms of explosives. A remote-controlled BTR-60 can easily haul hundreds of kilograms.

Explore further

Ukraine outfoxes Russia near Donetsk’s fortress belt with Soviet BTR-60s rebuilt as kamikaze robots, storms a key hub and takes 250 Russian prisoners

The arithmetic

It's not impossible to take out a VBIED before it strikes, of course. Mines, anti-tank missiles, and even concentrated gunfire can stop a vehicular bomb in its tracks. But losing one of the aged BTR-60s costs Ukraine very little. The vehicles are too thinly armored for use as front-line infantry transports anyway. You might as well convert them into bombs.

That is the whole case for the tactic. A manned fighter jet lobbing a precision glide bomb is the preferred approach to bunker-busting. But it costs tens of thousands of dollars an hour to keep a jet in the air, and a single glide bomb can cost tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's unclear how much it costs to convert a BTR into a VBIED. It could be just a few thousand.

And it reduces Russian fortifications without risking any Ukrainian lives. That's the philosophy underpinning all of the 3rd Army Corps' robot-first tactics. "This is exactly the direction of the corps' development set by Brig. Gen. Andrii Biletskyi," the corps stated, "to reduce the number of fighters in the most dangerous areas and replace them with robots."

Vivaldi began in mid-April under an information blackout that held for five months. The corps says it has regained control of 176 sq km across three of a planned four phases, around half of that de-occupied outright, and taken more than 250 Russian prisoners. Those figures are the corps' own and have not been independently verified.

Sometimes the robots doing that work are 60-year-old APCs modified for an explosive one-way mission.

Explore further

Ukraine retook 240 square km north of Lyman and nobody reported it for three months

1960s-vintage, Soviet-made T-62Ms aren't the oldest tanks in the Ukrainian inventory. That dubious honorific belongs to Ukraine's ex-Slovenian M-55S tanks, which are based on Soviet-made T-55s from the 1950s.

The T-62M hasn't gotten better. The job has changed. These days, many tanks on both sides function as mobile artillery, angling their guns high to fire a few rounds at targets kilometers away. They rarely work as tanks, closing with the enemy and firing directly from a few hundred meters. The threat from tiny explosive drones has pushed armor back from the gray zone, and at that distance a T-62M is not much less effective than a T-64BV. Or, for that matter, than a far more precious Leopard 1, Leopard 2, or M-1.

That is one reading of a war that has changed shape, and nobody has published a study of it. Ukraine's T-64, Leopard, and Abrams fleets have all taken heavy documented losses. Oryx, which logs a loss only where photos or video exist, lists no Ukrainian T-62Ms at all.

These tanks, all captured from the Russians, are also available. And that matters in a military struggling to sustain its tank force. As Russia's war on Ukraine grinds through its 56th month, Ukraine is running low on its newest and best tanks. Older and less capable ones fill in ... for lack of a better alternative.

Explore further

A rare Ukrainian Bulat tank turned up in a brigade that never had them

Observer Stevius, who closely tracks developments in the Ukrainian armor corps, recently highlighted the ongoing importance of former Russian T-62Ms to the Ukrainian war effort. "Captured T-62Ms still out there!"

Specifically, Stevius noted an ex-Russian T-62M belonging to the Ukrainian National Guard's 19th Brigade participating in a recent competition for best tank crew in the National Guard. According to Stevius, at least two other Ukrainian units have operated the survivors of at least 45 T-62Ms that Ukrainian troops have captured. Most of the captures took place during the Ukrainian counteroffensives in eastern and southern Ukraine in late 2022.

Lesser tanks

The 40-ton, four-person T-62M is Ukraine's second-oldest tank, and where the slightly older M-55S got a deep upgrade in 1990s Slovenia, the T-62M has not. In its DNA it is still a vehicle of the early Cold War. The Ukrainian army's 110th Mechanized Brigade temporarily operated T-62Ms before swapping them out for much newer and more capable T-64BVs. Where the T-62M has a 115-millimeter main gun loaded by hand by a fourth crew member, the T-64BV has a more powerful 125-millimeter gun loaded by a fast mechanical autoloader.

The fast-firing capability of the made-in-Ukraine T-64BV was central to the Ukrainian 1st Tank Brigade's successful defense of the city of Chernihiv during the early weeks of the wider Russian invasion starting in February 2022. The Ukrainian tanks engaged passing Russian tanks at point-blank range, and out-shot them.

That is the kind of fight the T-62M would lose. It is a kind of fight fewer tanks now get.

Explore further

Russia has thousands of tanks it can’t risk. One drone shield decides whether they roll

Surely some of the 60-something-year-old T-62Ms in Ukrainian service have been withdrawn owing to wear and tear and a possible shortage of spare parts. But there's a good chance most of the 45 Ukrainian T-62Ms are still in, or near, the action.

But not all are still tanks. Seeing the value in the thickly protected hull and reliable chassis that carries the T-62M's turret and gun, Ukrainian volunteers and units have converted some captured T-62Ms into specialist vehicles that benefit from the tanks' sturdy bottoms but don't need their obsolescent tops.

A few ex-Russian T-62Ms have undergone conversion into recovery vehicles by losing their turrets and guns and adding a heavy-duty winch for towing other armored vehicles. Volunteers working with the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation turned another into a heavy infantry fighting vehicle. The recipe is simple. Just pop off the existing turret and replace it with a smaller one fitted with a 30-millimeter autocannon, in this case one pulled from a captured Russian BMP-2.

Potentially dozens of Ukrainian T-62Ms are still T-62Ms, however, and still adding bulk and firepower to units that otherwise might struggle to deploy any tanks at all.

This story first appeared as the cover story in Issue 4 of The Atlas, a new global publication by Coda Story and The Continent. Sign up to the newspaper here.

In late July, at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Philadelphia, the mathematician Jacob Tsimerman was awarded one of four Fields Medals – the highest honour in mathematics.

A few hours later, Tsimerman announced that he was joining OpenAI.

Tsimerman’s departure from theoretical mathematics, while at the absolute peak of his powers, highlights the fault line in a debate that is upending the normally quiet world of higher mathematics. “What a dick move,” said one mathematics professor, speaking to The Atlas off the record.

Tsimerman, who has written extensively about his fear of “omnicidal futures involving artificial intelligence” – a fear that AI could wipe out humanity, closely associated with the AI “doomer” community – has said he will work on OpenAI’s safety team.

Tsimerman and OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

In recent months, OpenAI has announced proofs of various longstanding mathematical problems, solved with one of the company’s latest large language models. Other companies have also made advancements: RedNote, a Chinese AI model, obtained a perfect score at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Shanghai in July.

Human mathematicians, at all levels of the profession, are reeling from the implications. Tim Gowers, a professor at the University of Cambridge who helped to verify one of OpenAI’s proofs, has written that even if AI models fail to progress further, “we have still probably entered an era where it will become very difficult for humans to compete with AI at solving mathematical problems”.

This is a startling assessment – and a marketing coup for the likes of OpenAI.

“Mathematicians actually have a special role in this,” said Joshua Grochow, an associate professor in Computer Science and (by courtesy)Mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder. “The AI companies’ PR pitch is essentially to say, ‘Look, we have solved math. the intellectually hardest thing ever, therefore we can solve everything.’ ”

LLMs have not solved math – far from it. Nonetheless, Grochow added, recently some capabilities have improved. “They are legitimately able to produce real math, new math that they had not produced before. So you can’t deny that utility. You can deny the extent of that utility, but you can’t say it’s all BS.”

Miek Messerschmidt, a senior lecturer in mathematics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, recently used Anthropic’s Claude to take a crack at a problem that had stumped him. Claude solved it within 30 minutes. “How did I feel? You mean emotionally? I was relieved, because I didn’t have to go down this dead end any more. But I was also disconcerted by what this entity could do in such a short amount of time.”

NEW VARIABLES

Mathematics has been disrupted by technological leaps before. The abacus. The mechanical calculator. The blackboard, even, which played an instrumental role in standardising training and mathematical notation (“It’s hard to research, because most of what’s written on blackboards doesn’t stay there very long,” said mathematics historian Michael Barany).

But AI is a different kind of disruption. Where previous advances helped mathematicians expand the frontiers of their knowledge, large language models threaten the livelihoods, and purpose, of mathematicians themselves.

“Our place in society at developing new ideas has been quite unthreatened for quite some time,” said Tim Chartier, a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Davidson College. “For a long time, the frontier of mathematics could only be expired by the mathematicians themselves. There were no tools that could push into that boundary, except the research mathematician…At this current time, it’s not like we don’t need research mathematicians – but the landscape has changed so quickly, it’s hard to know what that will look like a year from now, two years from now.”

This matters for everyone: for thousands of years, mathematics has been considered to be the foundation of scientific knowledge. There is no physics without mathematics. No astronomy without mathematics. And there is no computer science – or AI – without mathematics. What happens if there are cracks in the foundation?

“I think that LLMs pose an existential threat to the mathematical community,” wrote Tasmin Chu, a PhD student at the California Institute of Technology, in an essay published on 2 August – the day after OpenAI released a set of ten new mathematical results, resolving or making progress on various problems.

“This is a polemic, not a press release,” Chu continued. “I know that others feel the same way; I have spent today crashing out and learning that top mathematicians I know are crashing out.”

Some of what mathematicians are worried about is the same as what everyone else is worried about: that AI will take their jobs; that AI companies have absorbed everyone’s work, and are reproducing it without attribution or compensation; that students aren’t learning properly any more; and that there won’t be jobs for them when they graduate.

But some worries are more specific to the field. Like the fear that, if mathematics becomes too reliant on particular AI models, then AI companies will have the power to restrict access to a select few – or make it prohibitively expensive. That promising young mathematicians, instead of turning to research, will use their talents instead to refine proprietary algorithms, which may or may not be used for the common good. That there will be no one left to understand, let alone vouch for, the mathematics produced by the machines. That objective truth, or anything close to it, is going to be much harder to prove – a fear shared with journalists, incidentally, who find it increasingly difficult to verify whether a photograph is real or fake.

MATHEMATICIAN IN THE LOOP

After speaking with more than a dozen leading mathematicians from around the world, The Atlas can confirm that Chu is not alone with her fears: it’s all anyone is talking about. The crisis is existential – and mathematicians are looking to one man in particular to guide them through it.

There are no working mathematicians who are truly famous. The closest anyone gets is Terence Tao, a professor at UCLA, who is often referred to as the world’s greatest living mathematician. A prodigy, Tao skipped five grades of school, receiving his masters degree at age 16. By 21, he had earned a PhD from Princeton, and was awarded the Fields Medal just ten years later, in 2006, for his pioneering work with Ben Green on prime number theory.

But what sets Tao apart, in a field infamously incomprehensible to outsiders, is his ability to communicate to both mathematicians and laypeople alike. This has made him a de facto spokesperson for the mathematics community – and extremely influential in setting its norms. “From all accounts he’s a lovely man,” said one researcher, speaking anonymously.

“But the social pressure to agree with Terry Tao is really strong.”

On July 24, the day after Jacob Tsimerman joined OpenAI, Tao gave a public lecture at the ICM titled “Mathematics in the Age of AI”. In it, he presents his “working hypothesis”: that AI tools for mathematics, which he already uses in his own research, will keep getting better. This will allow for collaboration on a vastly greater scale than has ever been possible before, Tao argues, and speed up the pace of research – revealing new, previously unimagined frontiers.

But it will also change, fundamentally, the role of human mathematicians. There will be little point in problem-solving – the computers will handle that. But the humans will still have to do the really hard work: understanding why AI-generated proofs are correct, and explaining this to others. The sooner they embrace this and plan accordingly, Tao concludes, the better.

The Atlas reached out to Terence Tao to request an interview. His human assistant, UCLA media relations officer Holly Ober, declined the request, making a referral instead to a “living document” which is maintained by Tao’s Claude AI assistant, on his website. This document synthesises Tao’s current thinking on AI, based on his public writings and talks, even “interviewing” Tao with follow-up questions.

As per his AI assistant, Tao believes that the topic of AI in mathematics is too important to be left to just a small number of spokespeople – and that his own “influence on this discussion should diminish as the rest of the community steps up.”

AN UNSOLVED EQUATION

Not everyone believes in the inevitability of AI defining the future of mathematics. According to several sources, both organisers and funders were disappointed with the turnout at the ICM in Philadelphia. Despite the gravity of the occasion, the congress was not at capacity.

Ila Varma and Tarik Aougab, associate professors at the University of Toronto and Haverford College respectively, may have had something to do with that. In March, they launched a petition to boycott the ICM due to the ongoing war in Iran, increasing authoritarianism in the United States and the risks faced by visiting academics – if they were even allowed in. “AI companies were invited, but most African mathematicians who tried to attend couldn’t get visas,” Varma said.

More than 2,600 people signed the petition. For Varma, this is evidence that mathematicians may yet use their status to resist the influence – and the cash – of the big AI companies.

“There’s an idea that the positionality of mathematics in society is to decide who’s smart, who’s worthy of the most lucrative career opportunities and the privileges that go along with it. And now we are being asked to take this technology that is likely to be extremely unhealthy for users, that’s bad for the environment, this thing built on unethical labour, and our discipline is being used against many of our wishes to tell society that this thing is intelligent, and that you should let it do your thinking for you.”

Michael Harris, a professor at the Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu in Paris, was at the ICM in Philadelphia. “The talks I attended on AI, starting with Tao’s public lecture, took pains to insist on the need for human mathematicians to make sense of anything produced in the name of the discipline, by machines or by humans,” he said. “There is a growing resistance to any use of AI whatsoever in mathematics, especially among young people, and this will become evident over the next few months.”

One of the clearest voices of dissent belongs to Max Weinreich, Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the City University of New York.

In an essay published earlier this month, Weinreich makes the case against what he describes as “artificial mathematics”: “Mathematicians do not need to use AI, nor should we use AI; soon, I argue, you will not want to have your name associated with AI. Instead, we should use our intellectual authority to oppose its development.”

His opposition is about more than mathematics, he told The Atlas. In his view, the environmental and financial implications of the AI boom pose major societal risks – and mathematicians, given their privileged position, are one of the few groups of people who can do anything about it.

As John Fletcher, a theoretical physicist and mathematician, observed: “There is a lot of power in being perceived as the smartest people in the world.”

Po-Shen Loh, a professor at Carnegie Mellon and former coach of the US International Mathematical Olympiad team, backs mathematicians to figure it out – by treating it like a maths problem. “AI is making mathematicians engage with the real world. They are smart enough to realise they have an existential crisis. They’re quickly racing down to discover all the dead ends, to see what works and what doesn’t.”

And when they figure it out, maybe they’ll let the rest of us know. 

A version of this story, edited for length, first appeared in The Atlas newspaper.  Additional reporting by: Shougat Dasgupta, Masho Lomashvilli, Irina Matchavariani.

Related Articles

Darkness is losing its war with the light

Simon Allison

The future according to Silicon Valley’s prophets

Isobel Cockerell

Captured: how Silicon Valley is building a future we never chose

Isobel Cockerell

The post As mathematicians grapple with AI, divisions are multiplying appeared first on Coda Story.

Astronomy, our window into the rest of the universe, happens in the dark. Planets, stars and galaxies – all the mysteries of the cosmos – only reveal themselves at night. But the night sky may be getting much brighter, thanks to an American company with a plan to conquer darkness itself by sending 50,000 giant mirrors into space.

What you are reading first appeared as a cover story for The Atlas, our new global publication with The Continent. Sign up here to get the next edition delivered to your inbox on August 27.

Astronomers are panicking.

It is an “existential threat” to optical astronomy, says the European Southern Observatory. A “disastrous” idea that will “permanently scar” the night sky, according to the Royal Astronomical Society. The American Astronomical Society told Nature it “would probably mean the end of ground-based astronomy, or optical astronomy, at least.”

Sthabile Kolwa agrees. “It will take away a very crucial part of our civilization,” she tells The Atlas. Kolwa, a senior lecturer in astronomy at the University of South Africa, studies the life cycles of galaxies, but today her concerns are more immediate. “It might come to this, that we just have to find them in the parking lot and say, ‘Hey, what are you guys doing? You’re going to ruin science for us.’ ”

Like Uber, but for the sun

The parking lot in question is in Hawthorne, California, outside the headquarters of Reflect Orbital. They call themselves The Sunlight Company. The start-up is celebrating: Earlier this month, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the launch of Eärendil-1, likely in a few months time.

This satellite, named for a character in JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, will unfurl an 18m x 18m mirror in low Earth orbit. It’s designed to reflect sunlight onto the dark side of the earth, lighting a 5km2 patch of land with the strength of four full moons.

It is a proof of concept.

By 2035, Reflect Orbital wants 50,000 of its mirrors in space, delivering illumination “comparable to daylight” on demand to paying customers (“sunlight is the new oil,” says chief executive Ben Nowack). The company says this will allow solar panels to generate clean energy overnight; provide “safer, evenly-lit streets” to cities that pay for it; and keep construction sites and farms working 24/7.

There will be an app, of course, offering “sunlight as a service” – lighting up the night will be as easy as ordering an Uber.

Clean, renewable energy is at the heart of the company’s vision, a spokesperson told The Atlas in a statement. Reflect Orbital declined to respond to specific queries and said it is in constant dialogue with astronomers, scientists and environmental researchers to mitigate the impact of the light pollution: “We are able to dim the brightness of the service and turn it off at any stage. We control where the light shines when serving an authorised customer. Most people and most places will never see this light. It is precise, targeted and customers will require permits to receive the service.”

Circadian arrhythmia

A new research paper, published in May, challenges Reflect Orbital’s position. Its author, the European Southern Observatory’s Oliver Hainault, concluded that the company’s 50,000 satellites would increase the background brightness of the sky by 300% – even when their mirrors are pointed somewhere else. This, coupled with a proposal from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build vast data centres in space, would go “beyond the limit” of what astronomy can withstand.

What that means, in practice, is that the images from ground-based telescopes will be dramatically less useful, marred by streaks of light from passing satellites. The most distant light sources won’t be visible at all.

This will obscure evidence of other galaxies, hinder research into black holes and other cosmic phenomena, and potentially prevent early warnings of asteroid approaches. Cutting-edge astronomy will only be possible from space-based telescopes like the James Webb and the Hubble – access to which is already massively oversubscribed, and subject to political interference.

The night sky will look different to the naked eye, too. “The next time you’re away from urban light pollution, spend some time outdoors after dark and enjoy the view of the Milky Way and the constellations that have inspired awe since humankind woke to consciousness. Chances are those views are not here to stay forever,” wrote journalist Tereza Pultarova for Space.com.

Running out of space

The night sky is already a lot brighter than it was 150 years ago, when light bulbs started to become commonplace. According to Dark Sky International, a US-based nonprofit that advocates against light pollution, 80% of Earth’s human population already lives under some form of sky glow, most of which is generated on land. This has forced astronomers to seek out “dark sky places,” like the Atacama Desert in Chile or the Upper Karoo in South Africa, for their telescopes.

Humans can adapt to less darkness. But it is much harder for animals and ecosystems that have evolved alongside predictable rhythms of day and night. Nocturnal predators lose the ability to hunt; sea turtle babies can’t find their way to the sea; migratory birds are thrown hopelessly off course; and moths expend all their energy helplessly chasing artificial light sources.

“It’s almost like we are on a mission to obliterate natural darkness from earth,” said Ruskin Hartley, Dark Sky’s chief executive. “And now rather than do it street by street and bulb by bulb, let’s do it from space.”

Space is, in theory, protected by the Outer Space Treaty, a 1967 agreement signed by 110 countries, including all the major space superpowers. It states that “space is the province of all mankind." But that’s not what’s actually happening, Hartley argues. “In the US, it’s the most wealthy, most powerful individuals who are gobbling up as much of that orbital space as they can before someone else can get that opportunity” – with China, Russia and Europe all scrambling too for a greater presence in low Earth orbit.

“Who gets to choose that we light up the night sky? Who gets to make that decision?” Ruskin asks. In the US, it is the FCC’s job to decide what satellites are allowed in space. But it has said that assessing the impact of light pollution or environmental damage is not within its remit. Instead, it wants to slash regulation so American companies can take advantage of the “space industrial revolution.”

And Reflect Orbital has rich and powerful backers. Earlier this year, it secured a $1.5-million contract from the US air force, hinting at possible military applications for its mirrors. Last year, it raised $20-million from three venture capital firms, including Sequoia Capital, one of the biggest investors in Silicon Valley. Sequoia also owns a multibillion-dollar stake in SpaceX, which has its own plans for low earth orbit.

There are already more than 10,000 Starlink satellites up there, giving Elon Musk unprecedented influence over global communications. The company wants to launch one million more satellites over the next few years to build a network of space-based data centres. In addition to the light pollution, astronomers worry the potential for collisions will increase dramatically, as will risks to the ozone layer.

A brighter future

On her blog Higher Dimensions, the astronomy professor Janna Levin contemplates our brighter future. “It is quite possible that the hot glow of the swarm of data satellites will saturate the night, washing out the stars from our perspective on Earth. We’ll look up into the sky and instead of Zeus transformed into a swan outlined in a constellation of a few stars, the machine gods will literally loom above us, glowing with radiant heat, making declarations, predicting the weather, forecasting then determining our fate.”

Kolwa, the South African astronomy lecturer, offers a different metaphor: that of empires “colonizing low Earth orbit.” This was an ambition of one of the most infamous imperialists of them all, Cecil John Rhodes, who said that he looked up at the stars and thought: “I would annex the planets if I could; I often think of that. It makes me sad to see them so clear and yet so far.”

But it hasn’t been colonized just yet.

“I’m still trying to figure out what we can do, what responsibility we have as scientists,” says Kolwa. “How could we engage our communities to stand up to these corporations and say no? We must keep our night skies dark, as dark as possible.”

Related Articles

How space traffic in orbit could spell trouble on Earth

Sarah Scoles

Silicon Valley’s sci-fi dreams of colonizing Mars

Isobel Cockerell

Life on Earth, after humans

Isobel Cockerell

The post Darkness is losing its war with the light appeared first on Coda Story.

Grammarly, a company with Ukrainian roots, announced its intent to acquire AI email writing app Superhuman as part of its expansion into an AI productivity platform, the company said in a press release on July 1.

Grammarly is the most valuable company with Ukrainian roots, reaching $13 billion valuation as of 2021. Grammarly was founded in 2009 in Kyiv by Oleksii Shevchenko, Maksym Lytvyn, and Dmytro Lider.

According to Grammarly's press release, email is Grammarly's top use case, with the platform editing over 50 million emails weekly.

Superhuman is an AI email application that the company says helps users respond to emails faster and reduces time spent on email communications.

Users are already sending and responding to 72% more emails per hour after using Superhuman compared to the previous period, according to Grammarly.

"This is the future we've been building toward since day one: AI that works where people work, not where companies want them to work," said Shishir Mehrotra, Grammarly's CEO.

The acquisition follows Grammarly's recent purchase of Coda, a productivity tool company. The combined platforms will allow users to work with multiple AI agents for different tasks within email communications.

Grammarly says that its service is used daily by over 40 million users, generating annual revenue of more than $700 million for the company.

As Russia ramps up missile attacks, US halts promised air defense shipments to Ukraine

Among the items being held back from Ukraine are Patriot air defense missiles, precision artillery rounds, Hellfire missiles, and drones, three sources told Politico.

The Kyiv IndependentAbbey Fenbert

Russia has the capacity to launch as many as 500 Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones at Ukraine in a single attack, but doing so on a daily basis is not possible, Ukraine's military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on July 2, according to Suspilne.

In recent weeks, Russia has intensified its drone assaults on Ukrainian cities, often launching hundreds in a single day. The largest aerial attack since the start of the full-scale invasion occurred overnight on June 29, when Moscow launched 477 drones and 60 missiles across Ukraine.

"Launching 450–500 Shaheds every day — it's just not realistic," said Budanov during a ceremony recognizing five Ukrainian intelligence achievements in the national record book, according to public broadcaster Suspilne.

"But unfortunately, they do have the ability to do it periodically. They can realistically launch up to 500 in one strike," Budanov added.

Budanov also said Russia is upgrading the capabilities of the Shahed-type drones by improving their CRPA (Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna) systems, which protect the drones from GPS jamming. He noted that Russian engineers are now producing 16-channel CRPA antennas, which are harder to counter electronically.

"These antennas are currently produced in Russia, but the engineer who developed this CRPA antenna was here in Ukraine," Budanov said.

"Back in the early 2000s, no one here needed it, so the engineer moved to Russia. One (of the two engineers involved in the development) has already died under unclear circumstances. The other is still alive, though probably not for long."

Russia has used thousands of Shahed-type drones throughout its full-scale invasion to strike Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, often in large overnight waves. Ukrainian air defenses have adapted over time but face growing challenges as Moscow improves drone resilience and electronic warfare capabilities.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Moscow has launched 28,743 Shahed-type drones at Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Budanov also said Russia has made unsuccessful attempts to develop its own naval drones. The last known effort came in early June, when experimental models detonated before reaching Ukrainian territorial waters, he said.

"They didn't achieve results. Based on our information, they were heading toward the city of Yuzhne, searching for targets," he said.

Ukraine has been using domestically developed Magura naval drones to target Russian military assets in the Black Sea, keeping much of Russia's fleet pinned in port.

Despite their small size, the unmanned surface vessels have proven effective, including in a May 2 operation when Ukraine's military intelligence used Magura-7 drones armed with air-to-air missiles to shoot down two Russian Su-30 fighter jets near Novorossiysk. It was the first recorded instance of fighter jets being downed by naval drones.

Ukraine shows its latest ‘ship-killer’ Magura drone series to the public for the first time

The Magura drones, as well as the Sea Baby drones of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), were pivotal in turning the tide of the war in the Black Sea, destroying or damaging Russian ships and other assets.

The Kyiv IndependentMartin Fornusek

The Defense Ministry has approved the Ukrainian-made ground-based robotics complex "Murakha" ("Ant") for combat operations, the ministry announced on June 28.

Since 2024, Ukraine has been scaling up robotics development in hopes that mass production of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) will "minimize human involvement on the battlefield."

The Murakha is a tracked robotic platform designed to support front-line units working under challenging conditions, such as under enemy artillery and in heavily mined terrain, the Defense Ministry said.

Its larger size makes it one of Ukraine's leading UGVs in terms of load capacity. The Murakha can reportedly carry over half a ton of weight across dozens of kilometers. It can also cross difficult terrain and shallow water.

According to the Defense Ministry, the Murakha's multiple control channels allow it to function successfully even in areas of the battlefield where Russian electronic warfare (EW) systems are operating.

Mobile robots are capable of performing several tasks on the battlefield, including offensive and defensive activities, evacuation of the wounded, logistical support for units, and mining and demining.

In April, the Defense Ministry unveiled the D-21-12R UGV, a ground-based robot equipped with a machine gun.

Ukrainian drones strike missile, drone arsenal in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast

Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) struck on June 28 the 1060th Material-Technical Support Center in the city of Bryansk, Ukraine’s General Staff said. The facilities store a Russian missile and drone arsenal, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing a source in HUR.

The Kyiv IndependentDmytro Basmat

The European Commission has proposed that Ukraine join the European Union's mobile roaming area starting January 1, 2026, providing Ukrainian users the ability to make phone calls, texts, and use mobile data in the bloc's 27 countries at no extra charge.

"We want Ukrainian citizens to stay connected to their loved ones across the EU, as well as in their home country. That's why we propose that Ukraine join our roaming family," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.

The proposal, first announced on June 16, will serve as a means of integration into the European Union's "Roam like at Home" provision in affect between all EU nations. The proposed change will impact the over four million Ukrainian refugees living in the EU.

Ukraine's full integration in the roaming provisions will replace voluntary measures that "allowed for roaming without surcharges and affordable international calls for EU and Ukrainian citizens abroad," according to the European Commission. The current measure will extend to December 31, 2025, ahead of the planned integration.

If approved, Ukraine will become the only country outside of the EU to join the bloc's "Roam like at Home" policy.

The move, which awaits European Council approval, comes as Ukraine continues to implement reforms in pursuing membership in the European Union.

Ukraine applied for EU membership at the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. The country has made quick progress, achieving candidate status within months, with the initial negotiations formally launching in June 2024.

Since the start of 2025, Ukraine has opened three negotiation clusters under Poland's rotating presidency.

Poland lead the EU Council's presidency until June, and Denmark will take over the role in July. Ukraine aims to open the remaining three negotiation clusters in the second half of 2025 under the Danish chairmanship, the President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

There are six accession negotiation clusters, consisting of several individual chapters. Negotiations prepare a candidate country to become an EU member.

The EU’s Commissioner for Enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, said that Ukraine could potentially join the bloc by 2029 if it successfully implements necessary reforms.

‘I am against Ukraine’s entry into the European Union,’ Polish president-elect Nawrocki says

“Ukraine must understand that other countries, including Poland, Hungary, and other European countries, also have their own interests,” Polish President-elect Karol Nawrocki said.

The Kyiv IndependentVolodymyr Ivanyshyn