Ukraine puts AI turret batteries over its energy grid

Several experimental batteries of AI robotic gun turrets are already guarding Ukrainian energy sites, the deputy commander-in-chief says, at $35,000 to $160,000 a turret against interceptors that cost far more.

Several experimental batteries of AI-controlled robotic gun turrets are already covering Ukrainian energy infrastructure, Brigadier General Andrii Lebedenko, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, said at a Wednesday briefing, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

"We have set up several experimental batteries which are already protecting energy infrastructure facilities and have proved effective," Lebedenko said. The goal was a new quality of old weaponry hybridised with AI-powered robotic turrets, he said, because drones now fly higher and have become difficult targets for the mobile fire groups that hunt them with machine guns. The turrets raise strike effectiveness, cut the personnel needed to work a gun, and reduce ammunition consumption severalfold.

New Ukrainian turrets run roughly $35,000 to $160,000 each, Arsenal.eu wrote, and engage radio-controlled and fiber-optic FPV drones alike. Fiber-optic drones fly on a spooled control wire that carries no radio link for electronic warfare to break. The military is still testing the systems but has already logged successful hits, per Arsenal, which put autonomous turrets of up to 60 percent effectiveness within reach of Ukrainian manufacturers by 2027.

The batteries land inside a wider private air-defence program. Sixty-three companies applied within six months, five are running operational tasks, with 272 recorded deployments and 38 targets shot down, according to LB.ua. The program started at Ukrzaliznytsya rail facilities and is being extended to energy companies, partly on their own investment. Military personnel no longer fit for active service on health grounds are being taken on as interceptor operators.

The General Staff logged 433 tests of new weapons and equipment in the first half of the year, more than 20 percent above the previous year, and 1,000 new systems have entered service, Mezha noted, citing Ukrinform. Lebedenko placed laser air defence two to three months out, saying Ukrainian lasers already down FPVs and are being worked against Shaheds. Until those arrive, the bottom layer over a substation costs $35,000 to $160,000 and is partly bought by the utility it protects.