Ukraine wants to turn its military into what it calls an AI-driven army. The Defense AI Center A1, set up at the Ministry of Defense in March, is already working on projects to deploy artificial intelligence at every level of the force, from data analysis and decision-making to striking the enemy, its head Danylo Tsvok said in an interview the ministry relayed.
The center splits its work into two. AI is meant to speed up decisions by chewing through battlefield data faster than the enemy can, and to sit inside the kill chain itself, the sequence from spotting a target to striking it and checking the result.
Tsvok has said AI can automate parts of that chain, while stressing that Ukraine is not building fully autonomous weapons and that a human keeps the final call.
AI enters kill chain
Tsvok pointed to where AI already touches combat. Computer vision drives last-mile guidance that steers a drone onto its target in the final seconds, working even under the electronic warfare that severs most links, and the same vision models run in interceptor drones that lock onto and down incoming Shaheds.
AI also runs in ground robots and gun turrets that fire under an operator's remote control, keeping soldiers off exposed positions.
Center builds for units
The center says its products serve two ends: saving Ukrainian lives and making frontline work more effective. It works directly with units, collects their concrete "pains", and turns them into tools that the units then test in combat.
Digital twin maps front
Tsvok described where this leads: operating systems that read the whole battlefield at once, draw conclusions, and propose options, a kind of digital twin of the front for planning operations and choosing which systems to send.
Pilot drone swarms, linking many drones into a single coordinated unit, point in the same direction. Both sides are racing toward battlefield autonomy.
