Ukraine Planned to Swarm Moscow Airports With AI-Guided Drones

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E arly this year , Ukrainian officials came to President Volodymyr Zelensky with a risky new plan to end the war with Russia.

It would require expanding their bombing campaign to include a set of targets and a class of weapons they had long avoided.

In addition to Ukraine’s ongoing strikes against Russian military bases, oil refineries, supply lines, and logistics hubs, the officials wanted to launch waves of AI-enabled drones at Moscow’s airports, hoping to stop international carriers from flying in and out of the Russian capital, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the plan, which has not been previously reported.

Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive military operations.

If executed, the plan would mark a terrifying milestone in the history of warfare: an attack in which swarms of autonomous drones equipped with AI guidance systems would seek out and hit their targets without a human pilot controlling their movements.

Such systems have been tested by various countries in recent years, including the United States.

But the legality of their use has been vigorously debated as a possible violation of the laws of war, and they have never been deployed at scale.

When officials presented the plan to Zelensky this winter, he expressed strong reservations, one of the sources said.

He worried that it could be seen as “piracy” if the drones hit a civilian airliner in Moscow, especially if the strikes killed or injured passengers, airport staff, or members of the flight crew.

But in his desperation to find a Russian pressure point that could restart the peace process, Zelensky allowed preparations for the strikes to continue for several months this spring and early summer, both sources said.

A spokesperson for Zelensky declined to comment.

Another official in the president’s office denied the existence of a plan to launch swarms of AI-enabled drones at Moscow’s airports.

“That’s total nonsense,” the official told me, asking not to be named in an article about this topic.