Terminators: How the race to perfect pilotless drones could harm us all

One fine day in early June, Ukrainian soldiers launched their latest killer robot. With a click on a screen, the unattractively named Gogol-M, a fixed-wing aerial drone with a six-metre (20ft) wingspan, took off from an undisclosed location and soared into a wide blue sky.

- Daniel Boffey

This "mothership" travelled 125 miles into Russia before releasing two attack drones hanging off its wings. Able to evade radar by flying at low altitude, the smaller drones autonomously scanned the ground below to find a suitable target, and then locked on for the kill.

There was no one on the ground piloting the killing machines or picking out targets. The robots, powered by artificial intelligence, chose the undisclosed target and flew into it, exploding on impact.

Human input was restricted to teaching the drone about the type of target to destroy and the general area in which to search for it.

The reusable mothership and its killer offspring cost $10,000 (£7,500), all in. It can travel up to 200 miles, with the suicidal attack drones able to fly a further 20 miles.

Such a mission would previously have required missile systems with a price tag of between $3m and $5m, it is claimed. "If we are financed properly, we can produce hundreds, thousands of these drones every month," says Andrii, whose company, Strategy Force Solutions, designed the technology for the Ukrainian forces.

The world was dazzled by Operation Spiderweb, in which 117 Ukrainian drones struck airbases deep inside Russia on 1 June, targeting the Kremlin's nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

Released from the top of lorries, the drones had "terminal guidance" software to allow them to fly autonomously to a chosen target in the final mile when Russian jamming systems had cut them off from their pilots.

This is, however, not even the cutting edge of what Ukrainians and Russians are using in battle, let alone dreaming up. Operation Spiderweb relied on a cunning plot to fool Russian lorry drivers into driving the unmanned aerial vehicles close to the targets. The drones were then piloted out of their hiding places.