Running short of interceptor missiles and facing faster Russian drones, Ukraine is building chains of AI-assisted gun turrets to defend its cities, soldiers and companies told the Christian Science Monitor. In Kyiv, a three-person unit guards a 10-kilometer stretch of the capital and its power stations, backed by what one commander described as "a chain of AI-controlled turrets across the city" that track incoming drones and help gunners correct their aim. The shift is driven by scarcity: air-defense crews said they now hold as little as one shoulder-fired missile per position, where they once had five or ten, forcing them to make every shot count.
The pressure comes from a change in Russia's arsenal. Propeller-driven Shahed drones fly around 180 kilometers per hour, but newer jet-powered variants reach 600 kph and can fly low enough to slip under radar or high enough to escape shoulder-fired missiles. Military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko estimated Russia now produces between 2,500 and 3,000 jet drones a month, launched in swarms ahead of winter to hit power stations. Interception rates vary sharply by region, as high as 75 percent around Kyiv and as low as 5 percent in Odesa, where defenders have little warning of aircraft approaching from the sea.
Private companies are stepping into the gap. In a Kharkiv basement, the firm Carmine Sky has operators who each control three gun turrets assisted by AI that tracks drones and corrects aim, part of a growing commercial network. Founder Ruslan Dombadze said 80 percent of his roughly 70 clients are in the private sector, and that the stretch of Kharkiv his service defends has grown from 4 to 22 kilometers. The arrangement blurs the line between civilian and military responsibility for defending the skies, a trade Ukrainians are making to keep pace with the volume of attacks.
AI is being used on offense as well. In separate interviews with NBC News, Ukrainian officials described tools that build a "digital twin" of the battlefield to generate recommendations for commanders, and models that analyze reconnaissance-drone imagery to find targets humans miss. "We are convinced that the future of war, no matter how scary it sounds, is a war of operating systems," said the leader of a Defense Ministry center. The framing echoes the autonomy milestones AI Daily has tracked elsewhere, from US Collaborative Combat Aircraft flying coordinated maneuvers to China's record underwater drone swarm.
The constraint underneath all of it is hardware, not software. Ukraine has designed its own jet-powered interceptor drones but cannot mass-produce them because of a shortage of engines; like Russia, it relies on Chinese-made components, and Beijing has restricted their sale. Kovalenko put it bluntly: "The big player and the big problem here is China. China helps Russia solve all its technological and technical issues." Whether AI-guided turrets and interceptors can scale fast enough to blunt Russia's winter campaign remains unproven, and depends as much on supply chains as on the models directing the guns.