Russian freelancers used Anthropic's Claude AI to program autonomous kamikaze drone swarm

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A small team of likely freelance developers in Russia used AI chatbot Claude to develop software for an autonomous swarm of first-person-view “kamikaze” attack drones , including terminal guidance, target selection and coordination between multiple aircraft, according to Anthropic, the company that developed Claude. In a 154-page report describing how bad actors used its Claude AI system for state-sponsored surveillance and propaganda operations, Anthropic said the drone swarm was programmed to pick its own targets and crash into them to detonate, without a human making the final call. In their programming,the freelance team repeatedly picked a location in Ukraine’s Donetsk region as their target and used VPNs to circumvent Anthropic’s geographic blocks. Small drones have become a central weapon in the war in Ukraine.

Anthropic also found that cybercriminals and state-backed hackers are increasingly using AI to orchestrate and execute large portions of cyber-attacks , including in attacks targeting officials in Ukraine. One hacking group allegedly ran phishing, hotel wifi hijacking and WhatsApp-takeover operations against targets in the Ukrainian government, military and diplomatic sectors, using AI at nearly every stage, Anthropic said. The group’s tradecraft was consistent with Russia-based threat actor Midnight Blizzard, which the US government has previously linked to Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, Reuters reported. The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The group allegedly used AI to build a system that automatically detected when its malware was flagged by security defences and rewrote the code until it evaded detection.

The Anthropic report comes as petrol stations in Kyiv have been hit by jet-powered drones in a wave of targeted Russian attacks as the bombardment of Ukraine’s capital enters a new phase of intensity. At least two people were killed and 12 injured in strikes on two petrol stations on Friday morning, according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko. The rush-hour strikes follow a similar attack on a petrol station on Thursday. All three strikes targeted petrol stations operated by Ukrnafta, a state-owned oil and natural gas extraction company. A list of 18 petrol stations in Kyiv expected to be hit by Russian drones started circulating on Telegram on Wednesday. The three struck so far were on the list.

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Russian president Vladimir Putin has blamed the west for the conflict in Ukraine because of what he said was its constant pressure on Moscow and its attempts to “drag” Ukraine into the Nato alliance. Speaking to reporters before the BRICS summit in India, Putin said “everything happening in Europe right now is basically the result of system errors by … the western globalists in politics, security, and economics”. After a Russia-friendly president was forced to flee Ukraine in 2014, he said the West “immediately set the goal of dragging Ukraine into Nato. And this ultimately turned out to be the main reason for today’s tragic events in Ukraine”. He said people in Europe understood what was going on, which explained why they were voting for far-right parties such as the AfD in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.

A Russian official will attend a G20 energy meeting in Houston next week, a White House official said on Friday. Last month, the US welcomed Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov to a meeting of G20 countries in North Carolina, upsetting European officials because it was the first time Russia’s finance minister had attended the forum in person since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The meeting comes as European Union efforts to become independent from Russian oil and gas are faltering, as it heads into winter with low gas stocks, its auditors said this month.

The US House of Representatives is expected to take up a tough Russian sanctions package next week , although prospects of passage are uncertain despite the bill receiving overwhelming support in the Senate. The bill is designed to add pressure on Putin to negotiate an end to Russia’s war with Ukraine. However, several top Democratic lawmakers are worried the measure dramatically expands president Donald Trump’s tariff authority, and he would use that new power to go after US allies.

Three people were killed in Russian strikes in southeastern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions and in Kharkiv in the northeast , according to the governors of those regions. Russia has for two weeks been carrying out almost constant attacks with faster jet-powered drones that have killed a number of Kyiv residents and disrupted daily life in Ukraine’s capital.

Ukraine also carried out drone attacks on Russia, killing two people in the Tula region overnight and one on Friday in the Kursk region, local officials said.