Technological advances have given threadbare militaries and rebel fighters the ability to strike stunning blows against far stronger forces.

The Pentagon notified Congress last week that it will be diverting critical anti-drone technology that had been allocated for Ukraine to US Air Force units in the Middle East, according to correspondence obtained by CNN and people familiar with the matter.

Cheap drones destroyed a significant fraction of Russia’s nuclear-capable bomber force” a phrase that would have been the stuff of science fiction even a few years ago, but which now constitutes the reportage of the consequences of Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web,

PRYLUKY, Ukraine (AP) — At least five people, including a 1-year-old child, his mother and grandmother, were killed Thursday in a nighttime Russian drone attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Pryluky, officials said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Donald Trump in a phone call Wednesday that he was obligated to respond to Ukraine’s weekend drone attack, Trump said, setting up a potential escalation in the conflict just as the US president hopes to broker an end to the war.

On June 1, Ukraine targeted several Russian air bases using first-person view (FPV) drones, cheap aerial vehicles which are remotely operated by pilots using camera feeds. According to reports, Ukraine used machine-learning algorithms to guide the drones to the target area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 4 accused Ukraine of being governed by a terrorist regime that deliberately targets civilians and claimed it is continuing to lose the war. He rejected the possibility of holding talks.