Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Fedorov Spoke About The M&M's Project
- 23.08.2026, 9:37
Media reports stated that he had predicted a large-scale attack by AI drones on Russia.
Former Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov in an interview “Channel 24” commented on an article published by The Atlantic, which claimed that during his tenure as defense minister, Ukraine was preparing a large-scale operation called M&M’s aimed at paralyzing Moscow’s airports using thousands of AI drones. Fyodorov did not go into the details of the operation, but stated that journalists had misinterpreted its essence.
According to him, the name “M&M’s” has nothing to do with the large number of cheap weapons that were allegedly planned to be deployed. In fact, as Fyodorov explained, during a meeting where fully autonomous “deep strike” drones were being discussed, he treated those present to M&M’s to celebrate his own birthday—he had been given a large box of candy as a gift. It was then that he suggested naming the autonomous drone project exactly that.
When asked about the details of the operation, the former minister noted that he could not discuss what had not been carried out, since such operations could still be carried out in the future, and therefore he was not prepared to comment on them. He merely indicated that the next phase of the war would involve cheap drones and missiles—specifically, fully autonomous drones costing $3,000–5,000, with no communication links, equipped with AI modules and map-matching technology. According to him, such drones will be able to fly without any communication at all, will be invulnerable to electronic warfare, and will independently search for and engage targets.
“We wanted to beat the Russians in this technology cycle. This is one of the first projects I’ve ever worked on. I actually put together a team of various engineers and manufacturers and said: ‘Let’s build fully autonomous drones; I really believe in this,’” he emphasized.
Fyodorov added that the research and development process was extremely complex, and not all manufacturers were able to achieve the desired result; however, he generally rated the outcome of the work as high.
The former defense minister expressed hope that missions using such drones would soon be carried out and that the technology would operate effectively enough.
“The next stage of drone warfare is remote control of drones. We need to remove UAV operators from the battlefield so that the Russians don’t hunt them down. And the next stage will be autonomous systems fighting autonomous systems. And we were actually bringing that future closer by working on this project,” Fyodorov concluded.
As a reminder, *The Atlantic* reported that Operation M&M’s aimed to isolate the Russian elite and force the illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. However, according to the publication’s sources, the operation could not be carried out due to concerns raised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding the possible downing of civilian aircraft and the threat to passengers’ lives at Russian airports.