Day: September 18, 2025

• Ukraine already has interceptors that can counter Russia’s jet-powered Geran-3, an official said.
• The Geran-3 is said to fly twice as fast, which could pose a new problem for Kyiv if used en masse.
• But the official’s comments indicate Ukraine is pressing on with FPV interceptors as a solution.

A top Ukrainian official said Kyiv’s forces already have interceptor drones that can destroy Russia’s jet-powered Shahed, an emerging threat that’s sparking concerns locally for its much greater speed.

“We have interceptor drones capable of fighting the Shaheds with jet engines. The enemy is developing, and we are not standing still,” said Pavlo Palisa, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, in a video interview on Monday with local media outlet Noviny Live.

Palisa said Ukraine is continuing to develop more first-person-view, or FPV, drones that can contribute to an “optimal” air defense system covering various altitudes and distances.

“Russia is also modifying its drones; they are already flying with jet engines, and we also have responses and protection against this in our FPV developments,” he told Noviny Live.

While Palisa did not publicly provide details of these interceptor drones, his statement indicates that Kyiv is pressing on with such tech to counter Moscow’s next generation of long-range attack drones.

The new Russian drones are known as the Geran-3, a domestically produced version of the Iranian Shahed-238 one-way loitering munition.

The Geran-3 uses a turbojet, allowing it to fly much faster than the Geran-2, which is modeled after the propeller-driven Shahed-136 and is now the staple of Russia’s large-scale bombardments against Ukraine.

While the Geran-2 is known to fly at roughly 115 miles per hour and have a range of about 620 miles, the Geran-3 has been reported to fly at 230 miles per hour and have at least equal range.

Countering it reliably could prove a major challenge for Ukraine, which is already struggling against the Geran-2 because Russia launches hundreds of attack drones and decoys at a time to overwhelm air defenses.

That’s why Kyiv is now working in overdrive to scale up production of interceptor FPVs — cheap drones that are fast enough to catch up to the Geran-2 and ram into it with a small warhead. If deployed en masse, the small drones could plug gaps in Ukrainian air defense and free up more advanced systems for countering deadlier threats such as ballistic missiles.

Interceptors have become especially crucial as Russia started flying its Shaheds at higher altitudes to thwart Ukrainian machine-gun crews tasked with downing the drones.

But the Geran-3’s new speed poses a tall order for Ukrainian interceptor makers, who would need to build FPV drones that fly twice as fast but are still cheap enough to make air defense cost-effective.

And while Russia isn’t known to be deploying the Geran-3 at scale yet, that may soon change.

The new attack drone has appeared sporadically since January, and it’s now been showing up more frequently in Ukrainian air defense reports. It’s unclear if these are prototypes or a finalized version of the Geran-3.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian military intelligence published new details about the Geran-3, saying it is equipped with a new satellite navigation system that makes it immune to radio-frequency electronic warfare, or the most common type of jamming in the war.

At least 50 of the Geran-3’s parts come from foreign countries, the intelligence report said.

The growing presence of the Geran-3 indicates that Russia is committing further to long-range attack drone development, potentially pushing the war’s battlegrounds further into the skies.

• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled AI-enhanced Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses at the Connect conference.
• Meta’s AI strategy reset includes a new Superintelligence division and major investments.
• Meta faces competition from Google, OpenAI, Snap, and Amazon in AI-powered eyewear.

Mark Zuckerberg is spending billions on AI, but at Meta’s conference, Connect, the spotlight stayed on hardware. The social media company’s new $800 Ray-Ban smart glasses got a flashy debut, while its much-buzzed-about AI Superintelligence push was seemingly in the background.

Meta’s new glasses come with a built-in screen that can display text messages, maps, and captions over the real world. What was harder to spot were the big leaps in AI that are supposed to superpower these gadgets.

The only real nods to AI in the presentation at Connect were quick — and a little shaky. Zuckerberg attempted to demo LiveAI, a hands-free mode that turns the glasses into a real-time conversational assistant, using the camera and mic to see and hear your surroundings and offer instant advice.

The demo sputtered, with Zuckerberg blaming the venue’s WiFi. Later, he showed off a new metaverse feature that lets users type in simple text prompts to conjure up sprawling 3D worlds inside Meta’s Quest virtual reality headsets.

This year’s conference came just months after Meta slammed the reset button on its entire AI strategy. At the end of June, Zuckerberg announced a new “Superintelligence” division to build advanced systems that, in the company’s words, would let people spend “more time creating and connecting,” and has invested in nine-figure salary talent packages to power the group.

To run it, Meta tapped Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang, paying more than $14 billion for nearly half of his company, and spending millions of dollars to scoop up talent from rivals. The company said that it also expects to spend up to $72 billion on AI infrastructure this year alone. So it’s fair to ask: where’s the payoff?

Perhaps it’s just too soon to expect fireworks. Meta only stood up its Superintelligence unit this summer, and even its new boss admits that the pace has been breakneck.

“Building an AI lab in 60 days flat is kind of incredible,” Wang said on the TBPN podcast on Wednesday, shortly after the conference ended. In other words, the money has been spent, the talent has been hired, but it may take time before Meta’s big bet turns into demos that work on stage.

Zuckerberg seems to have an idea of where this is going in the future. “Glasses are the ideal form factor for personal superintelligence,” he declared on stage.

“It’s the only device where you can basically let an AI see what you see, hear what you hear, talk to you throughout the day, and then once you get the display, it can just generate a UI in the display for you,” he told journalist Alex Heath in an interview.

All the action right now, however, is happening behind the scenes. In August, Wang sent a memo to employees announcing the biggest AI reorganization in Meta’s history, dissolving a major AI unit working on Artificial General Intelligence, and reshuffling staff into four new teams: research, products, training, and infrastructure.

Nearly every leader now reports directly to Wang, including former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. Meanwhile, FAIR, Meta’s blue-chip research arm, has been pulled into MSL’s orbit. Even Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, now reports to Wang.

The new leader is also building an elite new lab called TBD, in charge of developing entirely new AI models. In a memo, Wang acknowledged the shake-up would be “disruptive,” but insisted it was necessary to move faster.

You can buy Meta’s new glasses in just a couple of weeks, but the company won’t have the field to itself for very long. Google is working on its own AI-powered glasses with a built-in display, although it’s not clear when they will be released.

OpenAI, meanwhile, is working with former Apple design chief Jony Ive on a pocket-sized AI “companion” device. Meta’s other social media rival, Snap, plans to roll out holographic AR glasses next year, and even Amazon is in the mix with eyewear that already handles calls and music.

A ton of money is on the line. The only question is: when will Meta show something worth the AI-powered hype?

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