The head of a Ukrainian drone manufacturing company, Aleksandr Kokhanovsky, told Ukrainian media about the use of drones by the Ukrainian Armed Forces that were fully controlled by artificial intelligence. According to him, such aircraft made the decision to attack Russian servicemen on their own for the first time.

Kokhanovsky said the experiment was carried out about two years ago. At that time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces used 10 Terminator drones that operated without commands or control from an operator. He claims the aircraft selected targets themselves and struck Russian soldiers.

According to the company head, the case was not discussed publicly for a long time because such technology is officially banned even in Ukraine. This concerns the use of AI at the final stage of an attack, when the decision to hit a target is made not by a human, but by an onboard system.

Kokhanovsky described how the Terminators worked: the drone took off on its own and flew 3–5 kilometers to the front line without external control. After about 10 minutes of flight, a mode was activated in which the neural network began searching for targets and deciding whether to attack.

At the same time, according to him, the operator completely lost contact with the aircraft. He could not see the camera feed, could not cancel the strike and had no ability to redirect the drone to another object.

After the Terminators were used, a destroyed truck and the bodies of Russian servicemen were found in the area where they had been sent. They were presumably killed by a drone controlled by artificial intelligence.

Current Ukrainian rules formally prohibit the use of AI to make the final decision on an attack. The legislation requires the final command to be given by a human operator. However, Kokhanovsky said he is seeking to soften these rules, considering them outdated.