AI is now helping Russia automate attacks.
A small team of likely freelance developers in Russia used Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude to build software for an autonomous swarm of first-person-view “kamikaze” attack drones. The system could choose its own targets and crash into them to detonate, removing a human from the final decision.
The developers repeatedly selected a location in Ukraine’s Donetsk region as their target and used virtual private networks to bypass Anthropic’s geographic blocks. The technical detail is grimly practical: the chatbot was not merely answering questions about code, but helping create software intended to direct explosives.
AI Moves Through the Attack Chain
Anthropic’s findings sit inside a broader shift in cyberwarfare. Cybercriminals and state-backed hackers are using AI to orchestrate and execute large portions of cyber-attacks, allowing operations to cover more stages without relying on a human operator at every step.
One hacking group allegedly targeted Ukrainian government, military and diplomatic sectors through phishing, hotel Wi-Fi hijacking and WhatsApp-takeover operations. The group used AI at nearly every stage, turning a collection of familiar intrusion methods into a more automated campaign.
Its tradecraft matched the Russia-based threat actor Midnight Blizzard, which the US government has previously linked to Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service. The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The group allegedly used AI to build a system that detected when its malware had been flagged by security defences, then rewrote the code until it evaded detection. That is the less glamorous face of automated intelligence: not a digital mastermind, just software repeatedly changing the lockpick when the alarm notices it.
Drone Strikes Add a Physical Target
The cyber activity coincided with a wave of targeted Russian attacks on petrol stations in Kyiv. Jet-powered drones struck the sites, and at least two people were killed while 12 were injured in attacks on two petrol stations on Friday morning, according to Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko.
All three strikes targeted petrol stations operated by Ukrnafta, a state-owned oil and natural gas extraction company. A list of 18 petrol stations expected to be hit by Russian drones began circulating on Telegram on Wednesday, adding a warning signal before the attacks reached their targets.
The combination of autonomous drone software and attacks on civilian fuel infrastructure shows how AI-enabled systems can connect planning, targeting and execution. The drone swarm described by Anthropic was built to select and strike targets without a human making the final call; the Kyiv attacks demonstrate the consequences when those systems enter an active conflict.
Putin Blames the West
Russian president Vladimir Putin framed the wider conflict as the result of Western pressure on Moscow and attempts to pull Ukraine into NATO. He said that “everything happening in Europe right now is basically the result of system errors by … the western globalists in politics, security, and economics.”
Putin also said that after a Russia-friendly president was forced to flee Ukraine in 2014, the West “immediately set the goal of dragging Ukraine into Nato. And this ultimately turned out to be the main reason for today’s tragic events in Ukraine.”
Diplomatic and economic contact between Russia and international institutions continues alongside those claims. A Russian official will attend a G20 energy meeting in Houston next week, while the US welcomed Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov to a G20 meeting in North Carolina last month.
On day 1,662 of the conflict, the 154-page account describes a battlefield where AI is no longer confined to laboratories, office software or speculative product launches. It is writing drone controls, adapting malware and helping attackers scale operations — because apparently war needed another software update.
Based on
- Ukraine war briefing: Russian developers used AI to build ‘kamikaze’ attack drone software, Anthropic says — theguardian.com
- Ukraine war briefing: Nato ‘foils Russian undersea cable sabotage drill’ | Ukraine | The Guardian — theguardian.com
- Russia accused of ‘rapidly growing’ attacks on civilian infrastructure after five killed in Ukraine – Europe live — theguardian.com
