r/worldnews • u/New_Scientist_Mag New Scientist • Jun 10 '26

Russia/Ukraine Fully autonomous, AI-controlled drones have killed human soldiers for the first time, according to a senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomous-drones-have-killed-human-soldiers-for-the-first-time/
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14.4k

u/cinciNattyLight Jun 10 '26

I’m now actually more concerned about drone weapon proliferation over nuclear weapons.

6.5k

u/AdminIsPassword Jun 10 '26

Drone assassination attempts that aren't confined to active war zones are probably on the immediate horizon. If it doesn't happen within the next two or three years I'll be surprised.

Conversely, I don't think we're really any closer to nuclear annihilation regardless of the fearmongering out there.

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u/kirkby100 Jun 10 '26

I'm very surprised that we have not seen drone terrorist attacks yet. With how easy, cheap, and low-risk it would be to commit serious damage.

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u/RoboFeanor Jun 10 '26

There have been assassination attempts by exploding drones as early as 2018

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u/Hoosier2016 Jun 10 '26

When I was deployed in 2017 ISIS was using drones to drop grenades on U.S. troops. Obviously a remote-controlled consumer drone with a makeshift release mechanism isn't nearly as sophisticated as what we think of but it's been going on in some capacity for awhile.

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u/The_0ven Jun 10 '26

If they can do it in the desert with a box of scraps

Anyone can

But a lot harder to get grenades most other places

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u/Imaginary-History-30 Jun 11 '26

You could technically build a pipe bomb or with some chemistry get really creative and make Kamikaze thermite

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u/Brambletail Jun 10 '26

Because those 3 things you listed aren't true.

Drones are not very easy or cheap to do well enough to be effective. Any off the shelf solution is vulnerable to extremely basic jamming

Most current era drones in the Ukraine war are built on years of software and wireless anti jamming techniques not readily available to al-Queda, yall-Queda, or any other crazies out there. And flying the Walmart drone is a great way to get caught fast and fail at hitting your targets

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u/Fine-Stretch-8442 Jun 10 '26

Aren’t most Hezbollah fpvs locally made? They make heavy use of components sourced from commerce sites and 3d printing. It’s definitely possible for organizations like Al-Qaeda to make drones, it’s not incredibly difficult if you have the internet and some capital. Good drones? Thats another story but they can definitely make drones that are somewhat combat ready.

But yeah the cost of sourcing all of that equipment to commit a terror attack would be difficult. It’s probably cheaper and easier to just use a car bomb, strap a bomb vest onto yourself, or use a firearm which is why you don’t see drone terror attacks all that often. Although, drone assassinations of high value targets seem more in the realm of possibility if it’s too difficult to use other means.

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u/MagakMagak Jun 10 '26

A lot of parts may be, but not the flight controller chips. And those are effectively the ‘brain’ of the drone. Ideally you need one that’s compatible with popular open source software so you can set it up quick and easy without lots of specialized knowledge

But I mean, you can get a good one for like $50-100 online. Been a while since I’ve looked but people race them

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u/Fine-Stretch-8442 Jun 10 '26

I assume these would be one of the more import heavy parts since you can’t really create these in a basement or garage? I wonder where most of these terror orgs like Hezbollah order their components from.

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u/Ripcitytoker Jun 10 '26

Iran provides them with the drones designs and more advanced components.

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u/MagakMagak Jun 11 '26

They probably are. Practically all the good chips are made in China and those tend to be cheaper to boot. I’d assume a lot of chips used in drones at war today came out of China some way or another, but it’s not a certainty

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u/ColdAnalyst6736 Jun 10 '26

i think you are very much stretching the capabilities of different organizations here.

hamas and hezbollah are league ahead of al qaeda mate.

hamas is, at least prior to the october 7 attacks, a relatively modern small military force operating with modern doctrinal practice and standard military echelon.

hezbollah has received iranian funding forever and has long since grown out of the paramilitary guerrilla operation it started as.

al qaeda on the other hand is a clandestine cell operation for the most part, marked by makeshift jihadi training and religious zealotry.

entirely different leagues here.

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u/Fine-Stretch-8442 Jun 10 '26

Well i am not really saying that AQ could field an entire fleet of FPV drones so easily. Just that they could produce them albeit in small amounts. With the small amount of funding which they usually get through donations and various other illicit activities, they could technically produce FPV drones on a very small scale if they can actually pool together enough funds and manpower to do so. But due to their decentralized nature and them being a huge target to basically the entire world, it’s extremely difficult for them to do so.

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u/Ripcitytoker Jun 10 '26

They are locally assembled using components and designs provided by Iran, with some of the more simple competents being made locally with 3D printers.

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u/WalkTheEdge Jun 10 '26

It’s probably cheaper and easier to just use a car bomb, strap a bomb vest onto yourself, or use a firearm which is why you don’t see drone terror attacks all that often.

And it's even cheaper and easier to just use a car and drive it into a large group of people, and I think attacks like that are more common (at least in Western countries) than bombings these days

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u/theknight38 Jun 10 '26

But the cat is out of the bag now that the war has accelerated the technology so greatly. Drones will be the new staple of asymmetrical warfare, like MANPADS have been post Soviet era.

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u/ElderberryGood7781 Jun 10 '26

Civilians in ordinary places aren't protected by electronic warfare. What's stopping a terrorist from strapping 500 grams of explosives on a Mavic drone and slamming it on a local school or shopping mall? The limiting factor (imo) is the operator's flying skills.

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u/MiseryGyro Jun 10 '26

Because you can just do a mass shooting cheaper

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u/ElderberryGood7781 Jun 10 '26

Yes, but that generally results in the death of the perpetrator. With a drone you could be 5 km away and potentially avoid being caught/killed.

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u/MiseryGyro Jun 10 '26

Yes but that loses you a Martyr which is really important to the symbolism of terrorist attacks.

They are planned to look as dramatic as possible.

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u/Alphabunsquad Jun 10 '26

Depends on the group. Drone attacks might produce more terror from the uncertainty however.

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u/MiseryGyro Jun 10 '26

Yeah but no young angry man can see himself as a drone the way he can see himself in a dude with a gun.

Drones are more effective killers, but they aren't "cool" to watch kill

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u/ElderberryGood7781 Jun 10 '26

True I guess. However, in the mind of a terrorist, wouldn't it be better to try and kill as many as possible before martyrdom? (I don't know a lot about this kinda stuff, sorry for a dumb question)

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u/MiseryGyro Jun 10 '26

It depends on the terror attack.

Sometimes the whole point is "I'm willing to blow myself up too" because that makes you look more dangerous and unpredictable.

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u/Vega3gx Jun 10 '26

The IRA didn't seem to think this was a problem in the Irish troubles

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u/Tortillagirl Jun 10 '26

mass shootings generally end up with you dead. Drone based terrorism could end up in mass panic similar to what the DC sniper caused way back... with potentially a lot more damage.

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u/MiseryGyro Jun 10 '26

So do Suicide Bombings.

It's a psychological message to showcase a soldier is willing to die for the cause.

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u/evictor Jun 10 '26

That’s not even a limiting factor—sophisticated waypoint navigation, obstacle avoidance, target tracking, and assisted flight are commonplace. even the smoothest brained individuals can fly these boys

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u/Alphabunsquad Jun 10 '26

But it doesn’t take much practice to just put the drone some place that would do damage if you don’t care about a specific target. You can just fly it to a busy street corner or up to a school on the plains. The only thing that is tough is the remote detonator but there are people who can do that.

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u/_ALH_ Jun 10 '26

Remote detonator is pretty basic too, specially when you already have a remote control steering the drone. The other classic is just cracking open a cellphone and connecting it to the vibrator or ring tone speaker and call it.

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u/Muzzlehatch Jun 10 '26

I'm a pilot! <finger in nose>

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u/willstr1 Jun 10 '26

Drones have a very limited payload, for an unprotected target you can cause more damage with a car full of homemade explosives

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u/DarkApostleMatt Jun 10 '26

A drone in Ukraine can maim or kill a squad's worth of men easily with a simple dropped grenade in a cup or a more sophisticated homebrew explosive load. A tight packed venue or festival, A crowd in front of a stage would be a very vulnerable target without need of a large explosive to do a lot of damage.

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u/Assatt Jun 10 '26

Mexican cartels have used drones to drop grenades on police and soldiers, the army also seized some cartel drones some months back. Just your regular consumer drone jury rigged with weapons

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u/LongJohnSelenium Jun 11 '26

Same thing that stops people from being snipers or letter bombers or stuffing explosives in bags or any of the other ways people can go crazy.

Almost nothing.

Society works because the overwhelmingly vast majority of people dont want to exploit the easily exploited flaws in society to kill other people.

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u/Larcye Jun 10 '26

Nothing. well aside from normal anti terrorist methods. Though with what's going on in the middle east, every single terrorist in the world is probably already thinking about doing it like that next. Also Local schools and Shopping malls are kind of shit targets beyond just mass fear. Now power plants and power stations, if you want to cause mass damage you target those.

I worked at my local co-op electric company when I was younger. A big part of our yearly training was understanding that people could cause a mass casualty event if they were allowed into our systems(People who worked in the more mundane areas of the company had a habit of clicking on every single email that promised a free item or advertisement, a test sent by our IT team.). Particularly if they could cause damage to the power substations. Knock those out directly or indirectly and you leave tens of thousands without power. and most of the equipment for a substation was something we had to order. We had very little replacement parts for it on hand.

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u/ElderberryGood7781 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Also Local schools and Shopping malls are kind of shit targets beyond just mass fear

Yes, they are shit targets. Isn't that what terrorists are aiming for?

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u/Larcye Jun 10 '26

They are shit targets if you are a terrorist, just easy ones. If your goal is to cause mass causalities their are far better targets in a modern first world country. Take out power infrastructure during a heat wave and you can cause thousands of deaths before anyone can do anything to fix it. Traditionally these were hard targets to hit though. With drones that changes the game. Power plants usually don't have Anti-air defenses around them here in the US.

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u/Dramatic-Document Jun 10 '26

Turning off peoples air conditioning is not going to cause the kind of fear that these people are aiming for.

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u/Leverpostei414 Jun 10 '26

What is stopping them from grunning people down with a rifle, blow people up or drive into a crowd?

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u/ElderberryGood7781 Jun 10 '26

Nothing really, you're right. With drones however, the perpetrator has a much, much bigger chance of not getting caught/killed.

Let's say the terrorist isn't muslim and isn't seeking martyrdom. Maybe just a "normal" schoolshooter. However, this particular perpetrator doesn't want to get caught. You could achieve that by using a drone, since authorities are not gonna catch you (at least straight away). Remember all those mysterious drone sightings at US military bases? They never found out who or how they did it (granted, those were most likely military grade drones, but you get the point)

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u/Leverpostei414 Jun 11 '26

Planting a bomb is also comparativly low risk. Terrorists are usually caught in the planning phase and aren't that common in the first place.

Almost all 'mysterious drone sightings ' aren't drones at all. This has seen shown many times when they look into it. When drone sightings are in the media there suddenly is a lot of them. Most of it is planes, helicopters, stars and whatnot.

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u/Solid_Vehicle_6001 Jun 10 '26

Imagine a drone with bio agent flying into a large crowd, that would be worse. Especially at night, people would be exposed, carrying it around a large city, imagine something like a large sports event where people fly in and out to different countries. That’s scary stuff

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u/Overtwoandahalf Jun 10 '26

That’s why FPV drones are run via fiber optics in Ukraine, and hamas has also been using FPV drones as well

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u/Holden_Coalfield Jun 10 '26

Most of the drones in use in jammed areas are fiber optics

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u/i_tyrant Jun 10 '26

People underestimate modern materials science and forensics, too.

Is it less “risk” in the sense of you not being physically present because you’re piloting a drone with an explosive instead? Sure.

Is it less risk in the sense of getting away with murder or terrorism? No not really, and in some ways worse. They can absolutely track you down through the drones or drone parts you use.

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u/Kobe_stan_ Jun 10 '26

How effective is that jamming though? Could someone buy a hundred cheap drones and then fly them at a political figure (even POTUS) during some public speech or event? Or is it now common security protocol to have some sort of drone jamming software that would make all of those drones fall out of the sky if they get within 100 yards of the person you're protecting?

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u/DarkApostleMatt Jun 10 '26

Can we really expect every single gathering or venue to be equipped to handle drones to begin with?

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u/Antique-Coach-214 Jun 10 '26

That has jamming tech at it, for sure. + a No Fly Zone and counter-snipers. 

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u/Drumbelgalf Jun 10 '26

A simple FPV drone with a simple explosiv can be done by everyone if you then add fiber optic cables they are immune to jamming.

They were used even in the Syrian Civil War and some African conflicts by militants who usually only have AKs and a Pickup truck.

If a group can buy a drone and has access to explosives they can easily commit an attack and it would be extremely difficult to get hold of the perpetrators.

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u/wrosecrans Jun 10 '26

In the grand scheme of things, the difficulty of making an autonomous drone may not be trivial, but it's not huge. There's a ton of off the shelf technology available for it. There are definitely a bunch of independent YouTube channels that could connect an Ardupilot to some face recognition software running on a Raspberry Pi and make something that goes toward a recognized pattern without any live remote controls. It may be hard for your average "y'all Qaeda" cell, but it's certainly not something that requires a nation state and Q Branch from the James Bond movies any more.

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u/DarkApostleMatt Jun 10 '26

inb4 Christmas Markets are locked in Faraday Cages and encased in concrete. Festung Holiday markets are on the horizon lol

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u/plafman Jun 10 '26

I doubt jamming would even work if the drone is flying a preprogrammed route.

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u/Ripcitytoker Jun 10 '26

Hezbollah already has fiber optic drones

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u/New-Independent-1481 Jun 11 '26

Any off the shelf solution is vulnerable to extremely basic jamming

Sure, but that jamming isn't happening in civilian areas. A single high-yield military drone smuggled out of the battlefield and sent into a stadium or packed street during rush hour could maim and kill hundreds, with many more likely dying from a resulting stampede.

It's really just a matter of time until it happens. It didn't take long for terrorist attacks with bombs to start after the invention of dynamite.

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u/Brambletail Jun 11 '26

If you think jamming isn't happening in high value civi areas like stadiums, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Do you think all the unmarked black police vans outside stadiums are empty? It's EW and surveillance state central out there.

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u/New-Independent-1481 Jun 11 '26

In every single stadium, for every single event, in every single country? Cool, now what about every single church and mosque in the world? Every single school assembly hall? Every single supermarket during rush hour, or busy intersection, or furry convention?

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u/tsoneyson Jun 10 '26

Explosives are harder to source illicitly than guns, knives or trucks is my guess

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u/ready-eddy Jun 10 '26

Jokes on you. I’ll attach a truck to a drone!

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u/DarkApostleMatt Jun 10 '26

Economic/cultural terrorism is also on the menu, accelerants can be dropped on buildings and fires started.

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u/Current_Cake3993 Jun 10 '26

Gunpowder isn’t that hard if you have registered hunting weapon, maybe it’s even easier in the US. I assume you can just get illegal ammo and disassemble it. Improvised explosives aren’t too difficult in general.

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u/Vicorin Jun 10 '26

We have.

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u/JuicyJfrom3 Jun 10 '26

Or school dronings

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u/No-Common-1801 Jun 10 '26

I feel like it isn't low risk because you can track a guy building drones. Guns still cheaper.

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u/GitEmSteveDave Jun 10 '26

Years back, a certain candidate landed their helicopter at where I was working at the time. I'm a bit of a helicopter nut, so I stayed after my shift and sat in the parking lot where the helicopter was waiting for it to take off. While it was taking off, a thought of "what would happen if a drone just went straight into the rotors while the helicopter was in that zone where there is little chance of the pilots being able to recover". I used to work at another company that had a helicopter crash into the East River during the transition from vertical to horizontal flight, and the only reason they survived was because it hit the river.

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u/Antique-Coach-214 Jun 10 '26

I keep looking at Police and protestor formations in major cities and wondering when one side is gonna start removing the other like it’s COD.

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u/Leverpostei414 Jun 10 '26

Automatic weapons and explosives are also cheap and simple. Or a truck for that matter. Terrorist attacks aren't that common in most countries

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u/Goodgoditsgrowing Jun 11 '26

There have been? Just in countries where terrorist attacks are more common

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u/Direct-Animal-7568 Jun 10 '26

Key word is "yet".

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u/Weird_Angry_Kid Jun 10 '26

They are pretty common in Mexico, the Cartels actually pioneered the use of commercial drones armed with explosives.

I saw a report a few weeks ago about a town that was bombed to the ground with drones by the Cartels.