Drones deployed to spot weaknesses in columns of tanks. Presidential addresses via Instagram, ministers asking favours via Twitter. A military using crowdfunding and cryptocurrency to buy equipment. The mismatched military might of Russia and Ukraine has sparked creative uses of technology by the latter, hinting at the future of warfare.
The Ukraine war is still dominated by traditional methods of massacre, be it missiles or tanks or even Molotov cocktails. But like the rest of our lives, war has been upended by the digital revolution. “I think this is the reality of war in the digital age, the world we live in now,” said Neil Ashdown, researcher in cyber security at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Indeed, defence contractors and military organisations are often the first to shift to new technologies – or, in the case of the internet, fund their development in the first place. The most famous robots on YouTube are the parkour-running beasts from Boston Dynamics, a company sold by one-time owner Alphabet after staff protested at the military potential of the designs. Even now, Microsoft is making headlines for working with the US Department of Defense on augmented reality.
But the technologies in use by Ukraine and its military are different: they’re mainstream, everyday devices and apps
