MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/. Ukraine has so far only created prototypes of technical solutions for applying AI technologies to drones, while in Russia these solutions have already entered mass production, Sergey Beskrestnov, a freelance adviser to Vladimir Zelensky and an expert in communications and unmanned systems, said.
"The Russians have overtaken us in the technology of applying neural networks directly on board unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). <...> We have similar applications. But for the Russians, this is a mass-produced solution that has long been used on a large scale across the entire front. <...> At this pace, they can increase this application to thousands, even tens of thousands of UAVs. We don’t have that. There are prototypes demonstrating that such technologies can work for us. But we don’t have an UAV that we could produce in the tens of thousands," he said in an interview with the Ukrainian IT industry news portal Dou. He noted that this solution enables the recognition of visual objects and targets using AI, which makes the drone autonomous and independent of an operator.
Another area where Ukrainian developers are also losing the technological race to Russia is jet-powered UAVs. According to Beskrestnov, Ukraine currently lacks effective interceptors against this type of drone. "We have at least four types of jet-powered interceptors, but they are in the final stages of testing and evaluation under combat conditions. It’s too early to talk about mass-producing them by the millions--we’re still in the final testing phase," the expert said. He noted that, for now, aircraft must be deployed to take down jet-powered UAVs flying at altitudes of 4-5 kilometers.
Beskreznov said that the problem arose during the development phase, when Ukrainian manufacturers did not expect Russian UAVs to be capable of reaching such high speeds. "We need a much faster interceptor, and that requires a design change--a new challenge for manufacturers," he explained.
Earlier, Pavel Palisa, deputy head of Zelensky’s office in charge of military issues, acknowledged that the interceptor drones currently at the disposal of the Ukrainian armed forces cannot effectively counter Russian jet-powered drones. According to him, Ukrainian developers are "exploring options," but the problem has not yet been resolved.