Do not think that Ukraine's successful drone raid on Russia is accidental Ukraine has made a breakthrough in drone manufacturing and development, relying on self-reliance and support from allies (including Silicon Valley listed companies), and is becoming a "drone superpower" -- From producing 300,000 drones annually in 2023, to 1 million in 2024, and an estimated 10-15 million in 2025 Diverse types covering sea, land, and air Let's dig deeper into this 🧵

Above, Ukraine's latest long-range reconnaissance and strike drone Sokil-300 Currently uses Rotax 914 turbocharged piston engine (115 horsepower), with a range of 3,300 kilometers and a speed of 150-200 kilometers per hour Ukraine has at least three similar drones that will be put into service this year Ukraine has inherited part of the Soviet military industry system, and its aviation engine has considerable strength. The next step will be to develop jet drones The Turkish Kızılelma-B/C jet drone uses the AI-322F turbofan engine of the Ivchenko Design Bureau (Turkish drones are as follows) 👇

Ukraine’s drone technology has received a lot of support from allies, such as: MTS drone system (provided by the Czech Republic): Equipped with an AI-driven autonomous navigation system that can operate without GNSS or external communications. Actual combat verification in Ukraine has shown that the drone can still operate effectively in GPS-denied areas due to its high anti-jamming and anti-spoofing capabilities. Ukrainian "Smart Pilot" system: Relies on AI-guided visual inertial navigation and onboard cameras rather than GPS. Palantir's VNav software: Red Cat Holdings is integrating its Black Widow drone with Palantir's visual navigation (VNav) software, designed for environments where GPS signals are interfered. "Mothership drones" and swarms: In the cross-border Ukrainian drone attacks after this attack, Ukraine may reportedly have used a new AI-enabled drone system, using a larger "mothership drone" to carry and deploy multiple small FPV drones with a combat radius of up to 300 kilometers. These FPV drones then autonomously identify and strike targets. This means the application of AI in the coordinated deployment and autonomous operation of submunitions - a swarm, which is likely to go beyond the attack mode of a single drone on a single target, indicating that Ukraine already has scalable and distributed attack capabilities.

According to the current trend, Ukraine's drone production will surpass Russia in 2025, and it also has certain technical advantages. Ukraine can achieve this by relying on business thinking on the battlefield: 1. Ukraine implements a destruction points system - suppliers must submit "confirmed kill" images to score, and the score is closely related to subsequent drone purchases. This greatly motivates suppliers. Many suppliers and front-line soldiers often perform tasks together to obtain first-hand battlefield needs for drones. 2. Taobao for battlefield drones: Ukraine has established an online drone procurement mechanism to allow front-line soldiers to purchase drones based on demand, avoiding lengthy processes. 3. Government policies and incentives build national drone capabilities: The Ukrainian government encourages drone production through legislation and policies, such as relaxing restrictions on the purchase of home drone accessories and even allowing residents to assemble drones at home. The government also provides financial support and rapid approval through defense technology platforms (such as Brave1) to promote technology iteration.

Development forecast: Google’s former CEO Eric Schmidt has traveled to the Ukrainian front many times and has written reports He believes that the development of Ukrainian drones will quickly enter a large-scale, AI-based development spiral Ukrainian drone software updates are even updated daily OTC, AI’s RL and other latest AI engineering technology methods are all used on a large scale on the battlefield At the same time Russia and Ukraine are desperately increasing drone production capacity and battlefield deployment. With the geometric increase in battlefield drones, manual command has given way to AI autonomy, because one person cannot operate 100 drones at the same time And the capabilities of the AI system determine the combat effectiveness of the drone group We have completely entered the era of AI-operated weapons from the era of human-operated weapons.