Ukraine marked its 35th Independence Day on the 24th with a military parade that put unmanned systems — drones and robots — front and center instead of soldiers and tanks.
The latter part of a one-hour, 36-minute video posted to YouTube by Ukraine's presidential office showed dozens of unmanned military vehicles armed with various weapons moving in formation down Khreshchatyk Street in central Kyiv. Some of the vehicles were fitted with tank treads.
Footage that followed showed unmanned surface vessels cutting across the Dnipro River and drones flying in formation overhead, along with other types of unmanned systems in operation. The narration accompanying the video said that where the enemy targets Ukraine's weaknesses, Ukraine instead holds the advantage, and that behind all of the equipment lay sincerity and sharp intellect. The video was screened while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed foreign dignitaries in front of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
Euronews described the parade as a large-scale demonstration markedly different in form from previous ones. There were no soldiers, tanks or heavy armored vehicles in the procession, the outlet said, replaced instead by robots designed to carry out similar missions. Euronews assessed that the event showed both the likely shape of future warfare and the scale of change that Russia's full-scale invasion, now in its fourth and a half year, has brought to Ukraine's military. It also noted that Ukraine, which lacks conventional naval power capable of countering Russia's Black Sea Fleet, has been filling that gap with unmanned surface vessels.
U.S. military outlet Defense Blog likewise reported that the parade featured ground robots for logistics, reconnaissance and combat missions, drones equipped with interception, reconnaissance and attack capabilities, and unmanned boats including suicide models and versions carrying anti-aircraft missiles.
Meanwhile, Russia has been found to be operating autonomous killer drones on the Ukrainian battlefield that use artificial intelligence to select and strike targets without human command.
The New York Times reported on the same day, citing the Ukrainian military and drone and digital forensics experts, that the finding was confirmed through a teardown analysis of a drone that struck a propane tank facility at a gas station in Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine last month. The drone was fitted with Nvidia's compact computer, the Jetson Orin.
Ukrainian authorities said that analysis of the unencrypted chip found stored terrain images used to track targets and maintain flight paths, along with traces of pre-training to recognize and attack specific facilities such as propane tanks.
Nvidia said the Jetson Orin is sold to students, developers and startups, that the product is not exported directly to Russia, and that it may have entered the country through third-party resale channels.
