June saw a new monthly high of 5,429 drones, July has seen more than 2,000 in just the first nine days. With production in Russia ramping up, some reports suggest Moscow may soon be able to fire over 1,000 missiles and drones in a single night. Experts in Kyiv warn that the country is in danger of being overwhelmed. "If Ukraine doesn't find a solution for how to deal with these drones, we will face great problems during 2025," says former intelligence officer Ivan Stupak. "Some of these drones are trying to reach military objects - we have to understand it - but the rest, they are destroying apartments, falling into office buildings and causing lots of damage to citizens."

The war between Ukraine and Russia is being fought increasingly via drone --and NATO and US military leadership is training troops for future conflicts that will pit man against machine. Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking "Try Free" at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen.

Russia and Ukraine have launched a wave of drone attacks against each other overnight, even as Moscow claimed it was finalising a peace proposal to end the war. Ukrainian air force officials said on Tuesday that Russia deployed 60 drones across multiple regions through the night, injuring 10 people. Kyiv's air defences intercepted 43 of them – 35 were shot down while eight were diverted using electronic warfare systems. In Dnipropetrovsk, central Ukraine, Governor Serhiy Lysak reported damage to residential properties and an agricultural site after Russian drones led to fires during the night. In Kherson, a southern city frequently hit by Russian strikes, a drone attack on Tuesday morning wounded a 59-year-old man and six municipal workers, officials said.

The world's first drone war between nuclear-armed neighbours has erupted in South Asia. On Thursday, India accused Pakistan of launching waves of drones and missiles at three military bases in Indian territory and Indian-administered Kashmir - an allegation Islamabad swiftly denied. Pakistan claimed it had shot down 25 Indian drones in recent hours. Experts say the tit-for-tat attacks mark a dangerous new phase in the decades-old rivalry, as both sides exchange not just artillery but unmanned weapons across a volatile border. As Washington and other global powers urge restraint, the region is teetering on the edge of escalation, with drones - silent, remote and deniable - opening a new chapter in the India-Pakistan conflict.

Kyiv, Ukraine – "UFOs" have rained on Russia in recent days – some dangerously close to the capital Moscow and President Vladimir Putin's hometown. Russian officials and media, using that term – "unidentified foreign objects" – seem unnerved and are accusing Ukraine of drone attacks. Ukraine on Wednesday denied targeting Russia, suggesting attempts at domestic assaults – which Moscow did not accept. With a dash of black humour, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that a sense of "panic and collapse" was growing in Russia, "manifested by increasing domestic attacks of unidentified flying objects on infrastructure sites". Throughout the war, Ukrainian leaders and top brass have routinely refused any responsibility for attacks on Russian soil – and often resort to ridiculing disorganised Russian servicemen.

American journalist Spencer Ackerman, in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, just released a document related to the US drone operations leaked by National Security Agency whistleblower, Edward Snowden. The document is an article on Intellipedia, a secretive US data site where the US intelligence agencies share the material they mine on us all across the world. Titled "Targeted Killing: Policy, Legal and Ethical Controversy", the entry reflects Intellipedia's take on the work of many human rights defenders and organisations – including my own – to stop the CIA drone war across the world. Because of my human rights work, I have always assumed that I was being tracked by security agencies. Indeed, when I write an email to my wife, I sometimes add an ironic post-script to their agents apologising for being boring.

Saudi officials display what they claim are Iranian cruise missiles and drones used in the attack on Saudi Arabia's oil industry; Benjamin Hall reports from Jerusalem. The attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil fields will drive a massive increase in the need for perimeter security gear, according to a new report. The report, released by IHS Markit earlier this week, says that knowing where drones are at all times is a new reality. While benign drones must be tracked, it is the malicious ones that must be stopped. "Drone attacks are relatively cheap and easy to initiate but can inflict major damage," IHS Markit analyst Oliver Philippou wrote in the note.

President Trump's executive order this week removing a requirement that the government disclose estimates of civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes outside of war zones won't change very much--in practice. But that doesn't mean it's nothing to worry about. Trump's order rescinds a requirement created in one issued by Barack Obama in 2016 that the director of national intelligence to disclose civilian casualty estimates from all strikes by U.S. government agencies. The White House says the requirement was superfluous since the Pentagon has its own congressionally mandated reporting requirements. But as Luke Hartig, who helped draft Obama's order, explains for Just Security, that law doesn't cover strikes carried out by the CIA.

Comment Debate has raged for months over various internet giants' forays into providing next-generation technology for war. For example, in March, dissenters at Google went to the press about the web goliath's contract with the US military's Project Maven, which aims to fit drones with object-detecting AI among other things. This US Department of Defense project apparently began a year before, in April 2017. Google has always maintained that its computer vision TensorFlow APIs are for "non-offensive" purposes only and repeatedly denied the malicious use of its technology in its Maven contract with the Pentagon. Over 3,000 staff signed an open letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, stating that "Google should not be in the business of war".

More than a decade after the improvised explosive device became the scourge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is battling another relatively rudimentary device that threatens to wreak havoc on American troops: the drone. Largely a preoccupation of hobbyists and experimenting companies, the vehicles are beginning to become a menace on the battlefield, where their benign commercial capabilities have been transformed into lethal weapons and intelligence tools. Instead of delivering packages, some have been configured to drop explosives. Instead of inspecting telecommunications towers, others train their cameras to monitor troops and pick targets. Instead of spraying crops, they could spread toxic gas, commanders worry.