The former CIA chief says there is no defence against AI-powered systems that both sides are trying to assemble
Dominic Hauschild
September 5, 2026
The Sunday Times
A former head of the CIA has said the race to develop AI drone swarms could determine the outcome of the war in Ukraine. General David Petraeus said there was at present “no defence” against swarms, which can comprise dozens of unmanned drones attacking as one. “Currently, 90 per cent of drones can be taken down, but whoever gets drone swarms first will have made a leap forward,” he said.
Petraeus delivered the lord speaker’s lecture at the House of Lords on Tuesday, telling peers that unmanned operations would proceed at a “vastly greater scale” by removing the “constraint” of having to use human pilots.
Petraeus, 73, told The Sunday Times that both Ukraine and Russia were experimenting with autonomous systems, and the side that got there first would enjoy an enormous advantage. At present, most drones are controlled by individual pilots who remotely navigate their aircraft across hundreds of miles of terrain. “At the moment, pilots have to sit with a joystick for between 30 and 60 minutes at a time,” Petraeus said. Swarms would mean “you can get so many in the air without pilots flying them”.
Petraeus, who also served as head of US Central Command from 2008 until 2010 and led the international security assistance force in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, has been to Ukraine ten times since the full-scale invasion in 2022 and plans to visit again this year. He said that Ukraine needed continued support from the West, but added that “innovation” would be the key to victory.
On Saturday, Russia agreed to a temporary ceasefire to allow a visit to Moscow by Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Trump, with a proposal to end the war. The pair are expected to travel to Kyiv on Sunday for their first visit to Ukraine.
Although the use of artificial intelligence is now common in militaries around the world, helping with targeting and automating some weapons, most governments — including the UK and the United States — have ruled that humans must be involved at some level in the so-called kill chain.
On Saturday, 128 countries agreed to a non-binding text that could lead to a formal international treaty regulating the use of autonomous weapons. Signatories included the UK, the US, Russia and China.
In June, it was revealed that fully autonomous drones with no human oversight had killed soldiers on the battlefield for the first time. Ten “Terminator” drones, developed by a Ukrainian company, were tested in battle in 2024, targeting an unknown number of Russian soldiers.
Two months later, analysis of Russian drones in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia found they had been equipped with experimental AI targeting systems. Military experts said the drone was programmed to travel towards a particular location but was able to choose its exact target on its own, based on extensive training data.
This data can include thousands of images such as geographical formations and military vehicles. The software is also able to determine between civilians and soldiers. Last month the Ukrainian government gave the UK access to a huge repository of AI training data called the Avengers AI Lab.
Several companies, including the UK, are working on the technology to deploy large drone swarms. It is thought to be some time before they will be practically achievable.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies said last year that swarming was at a stage of “small-scale experiments”, adding: “Fully realised swarms, where drones communicate, make decisions and adapt in concert, have yet to be developed.”
The Washington-based think tank said: “Achieving such sophisticated co-ordination will demand substantial advancements in AI algorithms, communication protocols and real-time decision-making capabilities.” A Ukrainian defence source added that large-scale AI-enabled swarms were not currently achievable. It is estimated that about 45,000 Russian soldiers are being killed or seriously wounded a month in the war, far outstripping the number Moscow is able to recruit. To date, Russia is thought to have suffered about 1.4 million casualties. It does not release official figures.
Petraeus described the front line as a “death zone’’ because of drone warfare. “This is not a line of troops. You have to stay underground to survive,” he said. Rotating soldiers was a huge challenge; supplies often had to be brought in by remote-controlled vehicles, with medical evacuations coming out the same way. “In Afghanistan, you could get a soldier from the front line to a hospital in 45 minutes, within the golden hour to save them. In Ukraine, the challenge is just getting them out,” he said.
Petraeus also argued for “urgent” and sweeping changes in the armed forces at every level, including the type of people they recruited and the kit they deployed. “It must be across the board,” he said.
In his lord speaker’s address, the retired general said that remotely-piloted systems “already inflict the overwhelming majority” of Russian casualties. “Tanks and artillery increasingly operate only under extraordinary threat from ubiquitous surveillance and precision strike. “Remotely-operated unmanned systems on the ground, in the air and at sea are increasingly displacing humans from many of the most dangerous functions of front-line combat, and are profoundly changing the role of traditional combined-arms formations.”
Dominic Hauschild is the defence correspondent at The Sunday Times. He has reported from around the world, including Ukraine, the US and the Holy See. He has published investigations exposing Russian war crimes, including exclusively naming the officers in charge during the 2022 atrocities in Bucha and the military units responsible for the Zhytomyr highway massacre. He has also led the paper’s coverage of the war in Iran and covered China’s repression of human rights. Dominic joined The Sunday Times as a graduate trainee reporter in 2023. He was shortlisted for new journalist of the year at the British Journalism Awards and in the foreign journalism category at the MHP Awards in 2025.