This technology is our future threat, warns Serhiy Beskrestnov, who has just got his hands on a newly intercepted Russian drone. It was no ordinary drone either, he discovered. Assisted by artificial intelligence, this unmanned aerial vehicle can find and attack targets on its own. Beskrestnov has examined numerous drones in his role as Ukrainian defence forces consultant. Unlike other models, it didn't send or receive any signals, so could not be jammed.

Sitting on a mattress in an art gallery turned bunker in Kharkiv, with Russian munitions "howling and thumping" overhead, Dariia Selishcheva began making a video game. Jauntily titled What's Up in a Kharkiv Bomb Shelter, it was an attempt at self-distraction that evolved into a work of journalistic "autofiction". It offers a brief, vivid portrait of life under bombardment in the early months of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, based closely on conversations with Selishcheva's neighbours in the shelter and correspondence with friends hiding elsewhere. "My goal was to provide an opportunity for ordinary people's voices to be heard, to capture a fragment of life in a shelter," Selishcheva says. "I wanted everyone to know about their lives and thoughts."

Welcome back to Pushing Buttons – this is Keza, back with you after a period of convalescence. As I was lying in bed with Covid, watching what felt like 4,000 trailers from the live-streamed summer video-game showcases, I struggled to tell the difference between a lot of them. Every shooter seemed to be set in space. Every wholesome indie seemed to feature frogs or bears. Admittedly I was quite ill, but also, as our games correspondent Keith Stuart explored in last week's newsletter, we've reached a point where a lot of mainstream culture, including games, is starting to feel as if it's folding in on itself.