THE UK Government has been accused of turning Ukraine into a “testing ground” for AI warfare after British companies were invited to use Ukrainian battlefield data to develop AI drone swarms.
A drone swarm involves multiple drones using AI to work together as a coordinated unit, allowing a single operator to direct the entire group.
Stop the War spokesperson Jennie Walsh told The National the plans risked drawing the UK further into the conflict with Russia and warned that the development of increasingly autonomous military technology could contribute to further escalation.
It comes after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) launched a competition which will give up to 12 UK companies access to Ukraine’s Avengers AI Labs database to develop artificial intelligence models for battlefield drones.
The database contains imagery, video and sensor information gathered by Ukrainian uncrewed aerial systems, including more than six million detections of objects such as tanks, artillery, air defence systems, infantry and aerial targets.
The UK became the first international partner to secure access to the database under an AI partnership signed by Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv in August.
Stop the War said the latest development risked turning Ukraine into a “military industrial complex experiment”.
Walsh told The National: “This latest move to give British companies access to Ukrainian battlefield data feels a lot like it is now becoming a military-industrial complex experiment using a war-weary nation, aided and abetted by the MoD, for testing new warfare strategies and technologies.”
The group added the technology risked prolonging the conflict and benefiting arms companies.
It also warned that the UK's growing involvement in developing military technology with Ukraine could increase the risk of escalation between Nato and Russia.
Walsh added: “We know the dangers of either side deciding to escalate for various reasons and by using new AI technologies – horrific outcomes, including the widening of the theatre of war, and the involvement of nuclear weapons.
“The danger of current wars linking up into a third world war is all too real.”
The MoD competition, which opened on September 25, is seeking proposals from UK companies covering areas including autonomous target recognition, distributed decision-making and technology allowing groups of autonomous systems to coordinate their actions even when communications are constrained.
The MoD says the systems could be used for purposes ranging from delivering supplies to identifying and targeting enemy capabilities, with what it describes as “appropriate human involvement”.
Applications close on October 22, with companies selected for the first phase due to be informed by November 6.
The programme comes amid a wider push by the UK to develop autonomous military systems, with the British Army announcing earlier this month that it had completed eight weeks of experimentation with an eight-drone swarm.
It described the project as “a major step forward for the UK’s ability to deploy autonomous systems on the battlefield”.
Experts at the United Nations have previously warned of the potential for drone swarms to be used as weapons of mass destruction due to their scalability.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting defended the Ukraine data partnership, saying access to battlefield information would allow British companies to advance defence technology while strengthening Ukraine.
He said: “This world-first access to real battlefield data will allow British companies to continue pushing the frontier of defence innovation, deterring our enemies and making us safer at home as well as further strengthening Ukraine.”
However, Stop The War argued that greater emphasis should instead be placed on diplomacy and negotiations to end the war.
Walsh said: “It’s very clear that the main enemy to working people both here and abroad remains firmly at home and the first duty of anti-war activists is to oppose their governments and the brass hats who advise them and demand an end to the carnage.”
The MoD declined to comment further.
