NATO is preparing for wars that will be fought by swarms of thousands of drones controlled by an AI brain, according to a top NATO general. 

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, both drone and AI technology have developed at a lightning pace. 

Now, NATO fears the two strands of technology will be combined and used on a mass scale.  

Major-General Constantin-Adrian Ciolponea, who represents the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) in Europe, said the defence bloc needs to adapt to this form of warfare in the next five years. 

He told The Times: 'The next stage of evolution for drones will be swarm-type attacks when you don't have one or two, ten or twenty — you have thousands of drones commanded from a single point, whether that is a human or just a "mother" drone.'

Ciolponea, a special forces officer who served in Romania's army across the world, said that these swarms would have such destructive power that they could rival nuclear weapons, a development he says is both 'scary and reassuring.'

He added: 'Integrated robotised and autonomous systems across land, air and sea are much harder to defend against. It challenges prevailing military thinking by combining mass and precision. 

'Deterrence against aggressive states can become stronger because the whole conventional calculus became a zero-sum game.' 

'Nations without this type of [swarm] technology will be forced to join a security organisation or to accept the conditions of an aggressor', he warned. 

Already, AI is being integrated into drone warfare. Earlier this month, the New Scientis reported that fully-autonomous drones with no human oversight were able to kill Russian soldiers on the battlefield for the very first time. 

The incident, which drone-maker Alexander Kokhanovskyy said took place two years ago, involved quadcopters that were programmed to fly towards the front and cover up to three miles in 10 minutes, before engaging 'Terminator Mode', which engages a model that searches and intercepts targets.

Kokhanovskyy told the magazine: 'We just launch it and we know everything will be dead – everything that will be found there in this particular area will be dead. 

'There is no connection to the drone at all, you cannot see the video, nothing… Everything it sees will be killed.'

The result of this attack was looked into by human-piloted drones, who found the AI-powered machine had taken out 'a couple of soldiers, [and] one truck.'

Overnight, six people were wounded in Russian air strikes on Ukraine while Russia's ongoing fuel crisis deepened into parts of Siberia. 

The strikes came in the wake of a Ukrainian attack on a plant producing electronics for missiles in Russia's border Voronezh region on Monday that killed five people and injured dozens, according to the local governor. 

Russia and Ukraine have continued to exchange strikes as the war has dragged into a fifth year. 

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sought support from Western allies for a peace deal while also pushing for fast-track admission to the European Union.

Two people sought medical help after Russian forces struck the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, and three more people were wounded in Sumy, in the north, late on Monday. 

One woman was injured in a drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city of Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram on Monday evening. 

Early on Tuesday, Kyiv authorities briefly issued an air raid alert before withdrawing it. Zelensky warned last week that Russia was preparing a massive attack — something Moscow has said it would conduct regularly. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in February 2022.

Ukrainian attacks on maritime logistics and supply roads have sparked a fuel crisis in Russia and areas of Ukraine it controls. Kyiv's intensified air strikes on Russian energy infrastructure hit targets as far away as Siberia, more than 1,243 miles from the front line, undermining the availability of gasoline and diesel in Russia, the world's third-largest oil producer.

The fuel crisis has spread from Russia-annexed Crimea to areas in the centre and east and has also covered Siberian regions of Novosibirsk, home to city of the same name, Russia's third largest, and Omsk close to Kazakhstan's border.

The Omsk region, about 1,550 miles southeast of Moscow, is limiting fuel sales and the nearby Novosibirsk region is preparing to do the same, local governors said on Telegram.

The move was 'to avoid artificially creating panic buying at gas stations and speculation,' Omsk Governor Vitaly Khotsenko said in a post on the platform on Monday evening, adding that sales of gasoline would be limited to 40 litres per car and diesel to between 80 and 200 litres, depending on location. 

Sales of fuel for use in refuelling cans would be banned, he said. The Novosibirsk region was also about to introduce restrictions to 'prevent speculative demand,' Governor Andrei Travnikov said. 

From Tuesday, Lukoil, Russia's second biggest oil producer, was limiting gasoline and diesel sales in Voronezh region, the regional government said. 

Russia's war on Ukraine has prompted Europe to increase defence spending and partner with Kyiv on possible drone production. The conflict has spurred Sweden and Finland, until recently members of the EU but not NATO, to join the alliance. 

Foreign fighter jets escorted Russian strategic missile-carrying bombers during their 16-hour flight — which included air-to-air refuelling — in the neutral zone over the Barents Sea and the Norwegian Sea, Russia's defence ministry said on Tuesday.

Russia borders NATO members Norway and Finland. The defence ministry did not provide details on the origin of the foreign jets.