Ukraine’s AI Drones Ignore Russian Jammers. Moscow Still Spends $1.5M to Block Them.

KYIV — Ukraine’s newest drones can fly and strike without using Starlink. Onboard artificial intelligence lets them find their own targets, leaving nothing for a jammer to break. Russia still spends $1.5 million each month trying to jam the signals anyway. The effort is largely wasted. The drones do not rely on external navigation or communication links that jammers can disrupt. The shift marks a major upgrade for Ukraine’s drone fleet. Older models depended on Starlink satellite links for guidance. Russian electronic warfare units could block those signals, forcing drones to miss their targets. Now, AI-powered drones lock onto a target before launch. Once airborne, they navigate and attack autonomously. No radio link means no jammer can stop them. Moscow continues to invest in jamming technology. But the new drones render that spending obsolete. The war in Ukraine is becoming a testbed for the future of autonomous combat.