The measures apply to 39 individuals and 55 legal entities involved in unmanned technologies for drones.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the President’s Commissioner for Sanctions Policy, told reporters that Russia is actively developing drone technologies with artificial intelligence, a process that should be taken very seriously, as reported by public broadcaster Suspilne.
AI enhances drones’ autonomy, accuracy, and resistance to electronic warfare, enabling them to navigate, identify, and track targets automatically without operator intervention.
Vlasiuk noted that modern electronic components and substantial computational resources are critical for developing such drones, and the new sanctions package targets companies providing these capabilities.
The sanctions target:
- Russian companies Progmatic and Smart Birds, which produce drones. Progmatic manufactures the Mikrob-10, a small FPV kamikaze drone with an electronic autopilot and automatic target acquisition system. Smart Birds produces the Soroka drone, capable of carrying up to 3.5 kg of payload, equipped with an optical target-locking system and designed to bypass electronic warfare zones and obstacles.
- Chinese companies Dongguan Standard Trading Co., Zhejiang Lianxing Machinery Co., Guangzhou Benquan Import & Export, Shenzhen Sky Bow Navigation Technology, Harbin Bin-Au Technology Development, and Topscom Precision Industry, which supply components for drones, including Shaheds, such as engines, cameras, microchips, transistors, resistors, resonators, navigation receivers, and routers.
- Russia’s Neurolab AI Technology Center, which develops and trains AI models for drones, enabling autonomous navigation, target recognition, and tracking, as well as sensor data processing using significant computational resources provided by Neurolab participants.
- Russia’s Center for Unmanned Systems and Technologies, established to advance innovations in unmanned systems.
“Sanctions against these companies and organizations are strategically significant, as they aim to disrupt key supply chains in the development of Russian AI-enabled attack drones capable of inflicting significant battlefield losses,” Vlasiuk said.
Ukraine is systematically collaborating with partners to align these and other sanctions to increase pressure on critical components of Russia’s military production.
Previously, Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate reported that Russia is ramping up drone production, particularly Shahed attack drones, and seeking to replace imported components. In 2025, Russia plans to produce 79,000 units, including 40,000 Geran-2 drones, 5,700 Garpiya-1 drones, and approximately 34,000 other models and decoy targets.