VLADIMIR Putin has begun deploying kamikaze drones that select their own targets using AI in a fresh assault on Ukraine.
The country now faces over 500 attacks every night, just days after Kharkiv was rocked overnight by a downpour of missiles.
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Reports said the UAV-V2U is being used to close in on the northeastern city of Sumy, while Putin ramps up drone production and builds new launch sites.
It comes after Moscow fired more than 400 drones and 45 missiles across Ukraine in two days.
Some 70 units a day are now being made compared to just 21 last year, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence.
This is largely thanks to help from China, the agency has said, as the UAV is “mostly assembled from Chinese-manufactured components.”
Beijing has repeatedly denied supplying drones or weapon components to Russia, whilst Trump and Biden have both hit China with sanctions to stop it getting access to computer chips.
Marking a new escalation in the war, the drones use camera images to navigate and AI to independently locate targets.
The Defence Intelligence of Ukraine said: “The key feature of the drone is its ability to autonomously search for and select targets using artificial intelligence.
“Its computing system is based on the Chinese Leetop A203 minicomputer, with a high-speed processor assembly built on the NVIDIA Jetson Orin module.”
This comes just hours after drones and missiles were launched at Kyiv as Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bombers were reportedly unleashed to rain hell on the infamous Snake Island in the Black Sea.
Moscow launched a massive strike on Rivne using its Tu-22M3 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers to hit Dubny airbase.
Squadrons of these fighter jets were targeted and destroyed last week in Kyiv’s daring Operation Spiderweb.
Another key Ukrainian military airport – Hostomel – was also attacked as Putin sought revenge for the humiliating attack.
Polish armed forces command said Nato fighter jets were patrolling due to “intensive air attack by the Russian Federation on Ukrainian territory”.
Just days ago, Kharkiv was rocked overnight as 48 kamikaze drones, along with missiles and guided bombs, slammed into residential areas, according to the city’s mayor.
“We have a lot of damage,” Ihor Terekhov said.
More than 50 explosions rocked Kharkiv, with the mayor adding it was “the most powerful attack” on the city of the 39-month war.
In the latest terror strikes on civilians, 18 multi-story buildings and 13 private houses were hit and damaged.
In Kyiv, a dramatic tower block video filmed by a resident showed the terror of another Putin strike on civilians as flames from the exploding drone shot some 80ft up the building.
Three were killed and at least 21 wounded, including a six-weeks-old baby, and a 14-year-old girl.
A woman, 26, trapped under a slab of concrete was eventually freed three hours after the strike, and was seen being stretchered to an ambulance.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha described how hundreds of drones and missiles “rained down” on his country overnight.
He wrote in a social media post: “Kharkiv had a particularly terrible night.
“People were injured and killed, and the energy infrastructure was also damaged.”
Sybiha added there were further strikes in the Donetsk, Dnipro, Ternopil and Odesa regions.
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