Two years into Russia’s invasion, advances in drone warfare have been hailed as a way for Ukraine to partly neutralize Russia’s military advantage.
The relatively inexpensive drones have allowed Kyiv’s forces to strike back, including within Russia — UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles, have reached targets hundreds of miles from the border — although officials at the annual Munich Security Conference said the advances also come with risks.
In particular, officials at the event, a gathering of world leaders, military personnel and international security advisers, warned it would become harder for NATO powers to establish control over airspace in conflict zones because of the technology. The prevalence of the technology means a greater need for European nations to bolster their air defense, two people warned on the sidelines of the conference.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, gave a recorded presentation to the conference’s "Innovation Night” in which he showed video of the recent destruction of two Russian vessels near Crimea by underwater drones.
The ability to target Russian ships in that way has helped Ukraine establish and maintain a vital grain-shipping corridor since summer, defying Moscow.
"The drone fleet has opened Ukraine to the grain corridor in the Black Sea,” Fedorov said. In December, Russia was reportedly moving more of its Black Sea naval fleet out of harm’s way after Ukrainian strikes near Crimea.
Investment in drones by Ukraine has stepped up following evidence of their success on the battlefield.
A coalition of Ukraine’s allies has pledged to deliver 1 million drones within a year, while the United Kingdom and other nations plan to provide new artificial intelligence-enabled UAVs that could swarm Russian targets simultaneously.
Russia, in turn, has attacked Ukraine with thousands of Iranian-made Shahed drones during its two-year invasion, often paired with ballistic and cruise missile barrages.
Drone interceptor
One of the products shown at the Innovation Night at Munich was a 3D-printed drone interceptor developed by startup Tytan Technologies to combat the cheap and plentiful Shahed UAVs.
"The military is shooting down these drones with anti-aircraft guns and missiles, which cost millions,” Tytan CEO Balazs Nagy told an audience of investors, inventors and military personnel.
Artificial intelligence was another central theme at the annual gathering, where enthusiasm about the potential of the technology was balanced by concern about how bad actors may exploit it.
Discussions on the dangers of AI in cyberspace and on social media drew large crowds, with technology companies announcing measures to detect deepfakes around elections and Alphabet’s Google presenting new tools to use AI to bolster online defenses.
Google grants
"AI, like most other useful technologies, can be used for malicious purposes,” Google said in a report on using the technology for digital security released ahead of the conference. "A system that can find vulnerabilities for defenders to fix, can also find vulnerabilities for attackers to exploit.”
Google also announced $10 million in additional grants for Ukrainian startups during the conference. Kent Walker, Alphabet's president of global affairs, said that the financial support was aimed at creating a critical mass of entrepreneurs and encouraging foreign investment in Ukraine.
"There’s business opportunity there and it’s part of the larger effort of companies and democracies to work together to support the rule of law,” Walker said. "Part of that is helping democracies succeed.”
In a year where countries representing more than half the world’s population will hold presidential, local and legislative elections, voting integrity and the way that AI can manipulate voters also pointed to the risks technology poses. Big Tech companies and AI developers, including OpenAI and Stability AI, announced an agreement to combat the spread of deepfake content during elections.
"Once you’ve been fooled by a deepfake, you’re no longer going to believe anything that you see and hear online,” said Dana Rao, general counsel at Adobe.
"Once you doubt everything you see, that’s a real danger to democracy.”
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