Ukraine Seized Enemy Territory Using Only Robots and Drones. No Human Soldiers. A First in the History of War.

A Ukrainian-British military startup called UFORCE claims it helped execute the first military operation in history where enemy territory was seized using only robots and drones — no human soldiers. Over 150,000 combat missions since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.

Anduril, the U.S. defense tech company backed by billions in Pentagon contracts, already has AI systems that can autonomously complete the final phase of an attack. The U.S. Defense Secretary called for America to become an 'AI-first warfighting force.' China is accelerating its own AI-enabled military systems.

Human rights groups are asking the question nobody in the defense industry wants to answer: when a machine makes a kill decision, who is accountable? The battlefield of the near future isn't coming. It arrived in Ukraine. And the legal framework to govern it doesn't exist yet.