Ukrainian medium-range drone strikes, hitting targets at 7-120 miles, have ramped up sharply in recent months. In particular, so-called “Martian” drones are prowling the roads, seeking out and destroying fuel tankers and other vehicles carrying military supplies. Previously safe areas are at risk, and supply lines are threatened.

the real headache for the Russians is new drones which represent a step-change in technology, making defenses useless. And much of the credit for may go to Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO turned drone warfare investor.

Rather than finding its way by GPS, the drone uses visual navigation, matching terrain features to an internal map. This means that GPS jamming, which can stop other drones, is useless.

The drone has an AI-enabled vision system to lock on to a target. High-quality optics identify and track targets from long range.

the biggest technological innovation is the Martian’s communication system. The Russians say that it has a digital modem which hides its communications in civilian Wi-Fi traffic at 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz, using a non-standard encrypted signal. This suggests that it is using chaos encryption or similar method to make the signal invisible against other Wi-Fi activity. The Russians believe the drones use a mesh radio, so each Martian acts as a relay for other drones, creating a covert communications network behind Russian lines.

Root cause is the $5 billion plan that snowballed to this latest pin prick stunt.