MOSCOW, Jan 1 (Reuters) – Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, as well as an energy storage facility in the oil-rich Volga river region of Tatarstan, Russian authorities and Ukraine’s military said on Thursday.
Debris from a drone had hit the Ilskiy oil refinery in Krasnodar, causing no casualties but igniting a fire that was later extinguished, local authorities said.
In Tatarstan, Russian media cited the local governor’s press service as saying that an energy storage facility in the city of Almetyevsk had been hit, causing a blaze that was later put out.
Almetyevsk is located around 1,400 km (869 miles) from Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military said in a statement it had struck both facilities. Kyiv has been intensifying strikes against Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, aiming to cut off Moscow’s sources of financing for its military campaign in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Reuters, Writing by Felix LightEditing by Andrew Osborn)
NASA is seeking proposals for a new system to help spot and identify drones that may be flying over the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The space agency recently put out a call for proposals for Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) detection and analysis services, which NASA is hoping to put into action by April 2026. The purpose of the system will be “to make rapid and critical decisions to protect NASA personnel, the public, launch vehicles, flight hardware, critical high value assets, and security interests,” according to the contract listing. It will have both fixed and mobile sensors.
The move comes shortly after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it was banning new foreign-made drones and drone components, citing national security concerns.
Eyes on the skies
Kennedy Space Center is NASA’s primary launch site, including for the Space Launch System rocket that will carry the Artemis missions to the Moon, and houses facilities for research and commercial space ventures.
“All UAS flights over KSC property, whether inside or outside the security perimeter, are restricted and only occur with the approval of KSC Flight Operations,” NASA wrote in its proposal. It’s not clear whether the agency has faced recent threats from drones, or if this is a precautionary move to protect its launch assets. It’s also not clear what kind of drone detection systems are in use at the neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, home to classified military activities.
The drone detection system would detect and identify unknown UAS within a distance of at least 46 miles (64 kilometers), provide threat analyses, real-time detection and alerting capabilities, according to the call for proposal.
The recent ban on foreign-made drones stems from a defense bill that passed last year, which called for a review of the national security risks posed by the flying vehicles. In late 2024, there was a surge of reports of drones seen flying over New Jersey, but most experts say people were simply confused by traditional aircraft.
We can report at least one relevant siting: KSC’s Visitor Center is reportedly running a holiday drone show featuring 600 autonomous aircraft.
The time for gift-giving is over. Now, all that’s left is the few days until New Year’s revelries and the resulting hangover. So while we’ve all been spending time with friends and family, the folks on Gizmodo’s consumer tech desk have also had the chance to reminisce on the year’s best, wackiest, wildest, and worst tech products. Thankfully, there were a few standout products that have kept things interesting even as we slide into the new year.
Long-promised gadgets, including pop-out mobile controllers and 360-camera drones, finally saw the light of day in December. In the same month, we went hands-on with some great, affordable earbuds and even an at-home facial device. December’s gadgets also proved that you can’t trust everything companies tell you, especially regarding newfangled AI devices. Senior consumer tech reporter James Pero tested out a purported “AI translator” that proved so bogus, the company that made the device asked us not to review it.
Next year will be a standout for gadgets. Come January, CES 2026 will unleash a deluge of tech products on our heads. Companies like LG, Samsung, and more are already promising all-new TVs and monitors to showcase your shows, artwork, and even the occasional bit of odd 3D gaming content. We expect to see more laptops, speakers, AR glasses, bird feeders, and far too many gadgets promising AI will change everything. At the same time, the ongoing RAM shortage caused by the proliferation of AI data centers will inevitably spike prices for all computing products, from desktops to laptops to game consoles. We can already tell that 2026 will—somehow—be even more chaotic than 2025.
Shark’s facial device is built to keep you from spending extra money at the salon for something you can do just as easily at home. The device includes several attachments that will help exfoliate your skin, tighten pores, and boost circulation. There are a few too many moving parts to get it working, but actually using the device is relatively easy and fun.
The Soundpeats Air5 Pro+ prove you don’t have to spend well over $200 to get excellent portable audio. The $130 earbuds have a comfortable fit and an incredibly clear, even sound considering the price. The ANC on the earbuds was also surprisingly robust, partially aided by the tight, comfortable fit.
There is no drone like the Antigravity A1. It’s weird, occasionally perfunctory, and easily the most innovative drone to arrive in years. Instead of a single gimbal-mounted lens, the drone uses a 360 camera. Combined with the AR headset, this lets you experience the skies like the good witch Glinda from The Wizard of Oz, floating in a giant bubble in the sky. The drone also uses a unique aim-and-fly controller that is easier to comprehend for any drone novices.
Mobile controllers are better when they are—well—mobile. MCON takes that idea and runs with it thanks to its MagSafe disc that connects to your phone. A single button press pops open to reveal a full suite of game controls, TMR joysticks and analog triggers included. Sure, it won’t feel as ergonomic as a regular controller or other Backbone-like mobile controllers, but it’s certainly the most portable of the bunch.
There are a few big reasons you don’t want the Boox Note Air 5C e-notetaker. Its color E Ink display won’t look as sharp as a regular iPad screen with its limitation of only 4,096 colors. It’s not as fast as other, non-E Ink devices, either. But for reading and taking notes with a wider color spectrum available, you won’t find many more devices for cheaper, at least not one with E Ink. It helps that the Boox Note Air 5C feels nice in hand and comes with a fantastic stylus.
The same company that brought us the excellent GB Operator now has a new way to let you play physical Super Nintendo or Super Famicom cartridges on your PC, Mac, or Steam Deck. Like the similar $50 device built for Game Boy games, the $60 SN Operator hooks up to your PC and then uses software emulation to let you play your retro titles. The device will let you rip your game files to the PC, and it will support your saves on console or PC. In addition, the SN Operator has extra benefits, like checking for the authenticity of your cart. The connected app also supports RetroAchievements.
MP3 players will have their day in the sun once more, judging by how big audio nostalgia has become as of late. The Snowsky Disc is an MP3 player with a few modern amenities, including a circular touchscreen for controls. Otherwise, the digital audio player has ports for a 3.5mm and 4.4mm headphone jack alongside USB-C. It supports up to a 2TB microSD card, so there’s no shortage of songs you can potentially pack into this pint-sized audio device. The MP3 player may eventually come to the U.S., and we’re hoping it does soon so we can finally escape the hell that is Spotify.
There’s one big reason to pay attention to JLab’s latest ANC earbuds: battery life. The Epic Pods cost $100 and promise around 13 hours of battery life when outside the case. When charging regularly with the case, JLab promises that you can get a total of 50 hours of run time without having to plug the pod in. The sound may not be the peak of quality, and there are plenty of solid earbuds that come in at cheaper prices. Still, for longevity, the Epic Pods have many beat for that price.
Pebble creator Eric Migicovsky’s first non-watch product for his revived brand was bound to be controversial. The Index 01 is a very simple product with a simple premise. It is a stainless steel ring built for offering users a chance to record thoughts when on the go. The small button activates the microphone, and thankfully there’s no internet connection or subscription needed. There’s also no sign of unnecessary AI integration like on so many other smart wearables. The catch is that the device does not have any rechargeable battery. When you’re done, Pebble expects users to send it back to the company to be recycled.
Ever since Robosen debuted its first Transformers self-transforming kit with its Optimus Prime figure, we’ve wondered how long it would be before we could get the fan-favorite communications lieutenant for the dastardly Decepticons. Robosen finally showed off its Soundwave figure that will automatically collapse into a tape deck. Here’s the important part: it won’t play your old cassettes, but it will act as a Bluetooth speaker. The figure will cost an astronomical $1,400, so just know there are far cheaper speaker options available elsewhere that—unfortunately—don’t transform into a cool robot.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drones blasted apartment buildings and the power grid in the southern Ukraine city of Odesa in an overnight attack that injured six people, including a toddler and two other children, officials said Wednesday.
Four apartment buildings were damaged in the bombardment, according to regional military administration head Oleh Kiper. Power company DTEK said two of its energy facilities suffered significant damage. The company said that 10 substations that distribute electricity in the Odesa region were damaged in December alone.
Russia has this year escalated its long-range attacks on urban areas of Ukraine. In recent months, as Russia’s invasion of its neighbor approaches its four-year milestone in February, it has also intensified its targeting of energy infrastructure, seeking to deny Ukrainians heat and running water in the bitter winter months.
From January to November this year, more than 2,300 Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 11,000 were injured, the United Nations said earlier this month. That was 26% higher than in the same period in 2024 and 70% higher than in 2023, it said.
Russia’s sustained drone and missile attacks have taken place against backdrop of renewed diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting.
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and announced that a settlement is “closer than ever before.” The Ukrainian leader is due to hold talks next week with the heads of European governments supporting his efforts to secure acceptable terms.
The ongoing attacks, meantime, are inflaming tensions.
The overnight Odesa strikes “are further evidence of the enemy’s terror tactics, which deliberately target civilian infrastructure,” Kiper, the regional head, said.
Moscow has alleged that Ukraine attempted to attack Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in northwestern Russia with 91 long-range drones late Saturday and early Sunday. Ukrainian officials deny the claim and say it’s a ruse to derail progress in the peace negotiations.
Maj. Gen. Alexander Romanenkov of the Russian air force claimed Wednesday that the drones took off from Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
At a briefing, he presented a map showing the drone flight routes before they were downed by Russian air defenses over the Bryansk, Tver, Smolensk and Novgorod regions.
It was not possible to independently verify the reports.
Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday that Russia fired 127 drones at the country during the night, with 101 of them intercepted by air defenses.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 86 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over Russian regions, the Black Sea and the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula.
The Ukrainian attack started a fire at an oil refinery in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, but it was quickly put out, local authorities said.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, wounding at least 11 people a day before talks between Ukraine and the U.S., local authorities said.
Explosions boomed across the capital for hours as ballistic missiles and drones hit the city. The attack began in the early morning hours Saturday and was continuing as day broke.
The attack came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday for further talks in an effort to end the nearly four-year-old war. Zelenskyy said they plan to discuss issues including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
Two children were among those injured in the attack, which affected seven locations across the city of Kyiv said the head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration Tymur Tkachenko in a statement on Telegram.
A fire broke out in an 18-story residential building in the Dnipro district of the city, and emergency crews rushed to the scene to contain the flames.
A 24-story residential building in the Darnytsia district was also hit, Tkachenko said, and more fires broke out in the Obolonskyi and Holosiivsky districts.
In the wider Kyiv region, the strikes hit industrial and residential buildings, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service. In the Vyshhorod area, emergency crews rescued one person found under the rubble of a destroyed house.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
On Monday, the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission banned all new foreign-made drone models from distribution in the U.S., citing “national security concerns.” Americans who already own older foreign drone models will still be able to use those products, the government said.
In a fact sheet published Monday, the FCC claimed that “criminals, hostile foreign actors, and terrorists” could use drones “to present new and serious threats to our homeland.” As a result, the agency said that it had updated its Covered List — which is a list of products that have been “deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to the national security” of the country — to include all “UAS and UAS critical components produced abroad.”
The FCC’s chairman, Brendan Carr, said Monday that he approved of the policy. “I welcome this Executive Branch national security determination, and I am pleased that the FCC has now added foreign drones and related components, which pose an unacceptable national security risk, to the FCC’s Covered List,” Carr said. “Following President Trump’s leadership, the FCC will work closely with U.S. drone makers to unleash American drone dominance.”
The new rule will obviously impact many different companies, but it is destined to strike a blow against Chinese drone maker DJI, which is currently considered the dominant player in drone sales globally. Indeed, DJI is considered to be one of the most popular drone brands for American consumers.
When reached for comment by TechCrunch, DJI said it disapproved of the decision. “DJI is disappointed by the Federal Communications Commission’s action today to add foreign‑made drones to the Covered List. While DJI was not singled out, no information has been released regarding what information was used by the Executive Branch in reaching its determination.”
The company, which said that it remained committed to the U.S. market, continued: “As the industry leader, DJI has advocated for an open, competitive market that benefits all US consumers and commercial users, and will continue to do so. DJI products are among the safest and most secure on the market, supported by years of reviews conducted by U.S. government agencies and independent third parties.”
Throughout his multiple presidential administrations, Trump has repeatedly played hardball with Chinese companies. His administration laid the groundwork for the new drone ban with an executive order passed in June that sought to boost the production of U.S.-made drones and thus foster a “strong and secure domestic drone sector,” while also securing “the United States drone supply chain against foreign control or exploitation.”
Washington — The Federal Communications Commission on Monday said it would ban new foreign-made drones, a move that will keep new Chinese-made drones such as those from DJI and Autel out of the U.S. market.
The announcement came a year after Congress passed a defense bill that raised national security concerns about Chinese-made drones, which have become a dominant player in the U.S., widely used in farming, mapping, law enforcement and filmmaking.
The bill called for stopping the two Chinese companies from selling new drones in the U.S. if a review found they posed a risk to American national security. The deadline for the review was Dec. 23.
The FCC said Monday the review found that all drones and critical components produced in foreign countries, not just by the two Chinese companies, posed “unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons.” But it said specific drones or components would be exempt if the Pentagon or Department of Homeland Security determined they didn’t pose such risks.
The FCC cited upcoming major events, such as the 2026 World Cup, America250 celebrations and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, as reasons to address potential drone threats posed by “criminals, hostile foreign actors, and terrorists.”
Michael Robbins, president and chief executive officer of AUVSI, the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, said in a statement that the industry group welcomes the decision. He said it’s time for the U.S. not only to reduce its dependence on China but build its own drones.
“Recent history underscores why the United States must increase domestic drone production and secure its supply chains,” Robbins said, citing Beijing’s willingness to restrict critical supplies such as rare earth magnets to serve its strategic interests.
A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, Lin Jian, said Tuesday that Beijing opposed the U.S. setting up “discriminatory” lists and urged the Trump administration to “correct its wrong practices” and provide a fair environment for Chinese companies, according to the Reuters news agency.
DJI said it was disappointed by the FCC decision. “While DJI was not singled out, no information has been released regarding what information was used by the Executive Branch in reaching its determination,” it said in a statement.
“Concerns about DJI’s data security have not been grounded in evidence and instead reflect protectionism, contrary to the principles of an open market,” the company said.
In Texas, Gene Robinson has a fleet of nine DJI drones that he uses for law enforcement training and forensic analyses. He said the new restrictions would hurt him and many others who have come to rely on the Chinese drones because of their versatility, high performance and affordable prices.
But he said he understands the decision and lamented that the U.S. had outsourced the manufacturing to China. “Now, we are paying the price,” Robinson said. “To get back to where we had the independence, there will be some growing pains. We need to suck it up, and let’s not have it happen again.”
Also in Texas, Arthur Erickson, chief executive officer and co-founder of the drone-making company Hylio, said the departure of DJI would provide much-needed room for American companies like his to grow. New investments are pouring in to help him ramp up production of spray drones, which farmers use to fertilize their fields, and it will bring down prices, Erickson said.
But he also called it “crazy” and “unexpected” that the FCC should expand the scope to all foreign-made drones and drone components. “The way it’s written is a blanket statement,” Erickson said. “There’s a global allied supply chain. I hope they will clarify that.”
The Federal Communications Commission has added foreign-made drones and their critical components to the agency’s “Covered List,” making them prohibited to import into the US. In a public notice published by the FCC, it said several national security agencies have determined that umanned aircraft systems (UAS) and their critical components produced in foreign countries pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.
“UAS and UAS critical components must be produced in the United States,” the agency said. “UAS are inherently dual-use: they are both commercial platforms and potentially military or paramilitary sensors and weapons. UAS and UAS critical components, including data transmission devices, communications systems, flight controllers, ground control stations, controllers, navigation systems, batteries, smart batteries, and motors produced in a foreign country could enable persistent surveillance, data exfiltration, and destructive operations over U.S. territory, including over World Cup and Olympic venues and other mass gathering events.”
FCC Chair Brendan Carr clarified on X that the ban does not affect old drones. People can continue using the devices they’ve already purchased, and retailers can keep selling models that have already been approved by the agency. The new rule only applies to upcoming models. He also said that the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security can allow specific new models, a certain class of drones or particular components to be sold in the US.
The FCC didn’t name any manufacturers in particular, but one of the most well-known brands that will be affected by the ban is Chinese company DJI, which told Engadget that it was disappointed by the agency’s decision. “While DJI was not singled out, no information has been released regarding what information was used by the Executive Branch in reaching its determination,” a spokesperson said. DJI has long been in the US government’s crosshairs and has been trying to prove that its products aren’t a national security threat.
“DJI products are among the safest and most secure on the market, supported by years of reviews conducted by US government agencies and independent third parties,” they added. “Concerns about DJI’s data security have not been grounded in evidence and instead reflect protectionism, contrary to the principles of an open market.”
Dec 23 (Reuters) – A Ukrainian overnight drone attack sparked a fire at an industrial facility in Russia’s southern Stavropol region, the region’s governor, Vladimir Vladimirov, said on Tuesday.
There were no injuries reported, Vladimirov said on the Telegram messaging app.
Vladimirov did not specify which facility was on fire.
Russian oil major Lukoil runs the Stavrolen petrochemical complex at Budyonnovsk in Stavropol and the region also hosts gas pipeline infrastructure and fuel storage sites that make it part of Russia’s broader energy and chemicals system.
Ukraine, which has reportedly attacked the Stavrolen plant before, has said its strikes inside Russia and away from the front line are aimed at crippling Russia’s military effort in a war that Moscow launched nearly four years ago.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
In a windowless room at Denver police headquarters on a recent Thursday afternoon, Officer Chris Velarde activated a police drone to investigate a potential car break-in.
Officer Chris Velarde flies a drone and monitors live footage from its camera from Denver Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Several floors above, the drone launched from the roof and flew itself — essentially on autopilot — to the site of the call, reported as a man breaking into a car with a crowbar near the Santa Fe Arts District.
The drone whizzed along, 200 feet up, in a straight line across blocks, buildings and streets during the roughly mile-long flight from police headquarters at 1331 Cherokee St. Velarde didn’t pick up the Xbox video-game controller that manually pilots the drone until it reached the area of the call. Then he took control and trolled the block for the supposed break-in, watching live video footage transmitted from the drone on his computer monitor as he flew.
After a few moments, Velarde spotted two people jiggering the passenger-side window of a vehicle. He zoomed in on the pair, and on the car’s license plate. He ran the plate to see whether the vehicle was stolen; it was not. The people on the street didn’t look up. They didn’t seem to know a police drone was hovering above them, that they were being recorded and watched a mile away by officers and a reporter.
Two more people joined the pair at the vehicle’s window and Velarde made the call — this didn’t look like a vehicle break-in. More likely, someone had just locked their keys in their car. He cleared the call with 911 dispatchers and told them there was no need to send an officer to the scene. Then he sent the drone back to headquarters; it flew itself to the rooftop dock, landing autonomously on a platform stamped with bright blue-and-yellow QR codes.
The Denver Police Department began testing drones as first responders — that is, sending them out on 911 calls — in mid-October after signing up for two free pilot programs from rival drone companies Skydio and Flock Safety. The effort has raised concerns among privacy advocates, Denver politicians and the city’s police oversight group, particularly regarding the department’s contract with Flock, the company behind the city’s controversial network of automated license-plate readers.
Police see the drones as a way to speed up call-response times and provide more information to officers as they arrive on scene, improving, they say, both public safety and officer safety. If a drone arrives at a scene before officers, and the drone pilot can tell police on the ground that the man with the knife actually put down the weapon before the officers arrived, that helps everyone, police said.
“The more knowledge, information and intelligence that we can provide our officers on the ground, the better methods that they can use to respond to certain situations, which may cause them to not escalate unnecessarily,” said Cmdr. Clifford Barnes, who heads the department’s Cyber Bureau.
Critics say the eyes in the sky raise serious privacy concerns both with how the drones and the data they collect are used now, and with how they might be used in the future as the technology rapidly changes. They worry that the drones could create a citywide surveillance network with few legal guardrails, that the footage they collect will be used to train private companies’ AI algorithms or that police will misuse emerging AI capabilities, like facial recognition.
“When it comes to the decision of, are we going to use this thing that could potentially increase public safety, that will erode privacy rights — no one should get to decide the public is willing to give away our constitutional rights, except the people,” said Anaya Robinson, public policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. “And when law enforcement makes that decision for us, it becomes extremely problematic.”
Almost 300 drone flights in 55 days
So far, only Skydio drones have flown as first responders over Denver.
Denver police signed a zero-dollar contract with Flock — without public announcement — in August for a year-long pilot of drones as first responders, but the company has yet to set up its autonomous aircraft. Skydio, on the other hand, moved quickly to get drones in the air after Denver police in October signed a contract to test up to four of the company’s drones during a free six-month pilot.
Skydio’s drones can reach about a 2-mile radius around the Denver police headquarters. The company advertises a top speed of 45 mph with 40 minutes of flight time; Denver pilots have found the drones average around 28 mph and around 25 minutes of battery life per flight.
From the first flight on Oct. 15 through Tuesday, two Skydio drones flew 297 times, according to data provided by Denver police in response to an open records request. Most of those flights — 199 — were to answer calls for service; another 82 were training flights, according to the data.
Skydio drones also surveilled events — a function police call “event overwatch” — seven times, the police data shows. Overwatch might include flying over a protest to track where the demonstrators are headed and alert officers on the ground for traffic control, Barnes said. (The police data showed that all seven overwatch flights occurred on Oct. 18, the day of Denver’s “No Kings” rally.)
The drones flew to 29 calls about a person with a weapon, 21 disturbances, 20 assaults in progress, a dozen suspicious occurrences and 11 hold-up alarms, according to data from Denver’s 911 dispatch records. The drones also flew to 39 other types of calls, including reports of prowlers, fights, burglaries, domestic violence and suicidal people.
The most common outcome for a call was that the officers were unable to locate an incident or the suspect was gone by the time the drone or police officers arrived, the records show. Across about 200 calls for service that included drone responses, police made 22 arrests and issued one citation, the dispatch data shows.
When responding to calls for service, the drones reached the scene before patrol officers 88% of the time, the police data shows. A drone was the sole police response in 80 of 199 calls for service, or about 40% of the time.
Barnes said answering calls with solely a drone improves police efficiency.
“If an officer on the ground doesn’t need to respond, and the drone pilot is comfortable with cancelling the other officers coming, we can assign those officers to more important, more pressing matters, so call-response times come down,” he said.
That approach raises questions about what the drones (which are equipped with three different cameras and a thermal imager) can and can’t see, and how officers are making decisions about call responses without actually speaking to anyone at the scene, the ACLU’s Robinson said.
“Humans have bias,” he said. Drone pilots might be more inclined to send officers to a potential car break-in in a low-income neighborhood and more likely not to in a higher-income neighborhood, he said. Or they might miss something from above that they could have seen at street level.
Officer Chris Velarde flies a drone and monitors live footage from its camera from Denver Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
But minimizing in-person police interactions with residents, particularly in over-policed neighborhoods, can also be a positive, said Julia Richman, chair of Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board, which provides civilian oversight of the police department.
“Where my head goes is the other outcome, where they roll up on those people who are trying to get keys out of the car and then they shoot them,” she said. “Actually, (the drone-only response) seems like a really good outcome.”
The oversight group has talked with Denver police over the last two years about developing its drone program, she said. The department created a seven-page policy to guide their use; the policy aims to ensure “civil rights and reasonable expectations of privacy are a key component of any decision made to deploy” a drone.
But Richman said she was surprised by aspects of the police department’s pilot programs despite the ongoing conversations with department leadership.
“What was never discussed, not once, was the idea of a third party running those drones or those drones being autonomous,” she said, referring to the drone companies. “What has changed with this latest pilot is the key features and key aspects that would create public concern had never been discussed with us.”
Both Flock and Skydio advertise autonomous features powered by artificial intelligence. Skydio uses AI for its autonomous flight paths, obstacle avoidance and tracking people and cars.
Flock, which also offers autonomous flight, advertises its drones as integrating with its automated license-plate readers. The license-plate readers — there are more than 100 around Denver — automatically photograph every car that passes by them. If a license plate is stolen or involved in a crime, the license-plate readers alert police within seconds.
Police Chief Ron Thomas and Mayor Mike Johnston defended the surveillance network as an invaluable crime-solving tool this year against mounting public discontent around how much data the machines collected and how that data was used — particularly around sharing information with the federal government for the purposes of immigration enforcement.
That privacy debate around Flock’s license plate readers unfolded in communities across Colorado and nationwide this year. In Loveland, the police department for a time allowed U.S. Border Patrol agents to access its Flock cameras before blocking that access. In Longmont, councilmembers voted Wednesday to look for alternatives to replace the 20 Flock license plate readers in that city.
When Denver City Council members, some driven by privacy concerns, voted against continuing Flock’s license-plate readers in May, Johnston extended the surveillance anyway through a free five-month contract extension with Flock in October that did not require approval from the council. Against that backdrop, Denver police quietly signed on for Flock’s drone pilot in August.
Barnes said the police department will not use any license-plate reader capabilities available on Flock drones. Such a feature would constitute “random surveillance,” which is prohibited under the department’s drone policy. The drones never fly without an officer’s direct involvement, he added.
The blue 2-mile-radius line seen on a computer screen shows the range of Denver police Skydio drones flown from Denver Police headquarters. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The policy also prohibits drones from filming anywhere a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy unless police have a warrant, and says officers should take “reasonable precautions … to avoid inadvertently recording or transmitting images of areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Denver police do receive search warrants to fly drones for particular operations outside of the drones-as-first-responder program. In October, a Denver police detective sought and received a warrant to fly a drone over a shooting suspect’s home in Cherry Hills Village to check whether a truck involved in the shooting was parked at the wooded property.
The warrant noted that when driving home from anywhere outside Cherry Hills Village, the suspect could not reach his house without passing by Flock license-plate readers, and that photos from those license-plate readers suggested the truck was at the property.
Denver Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Councilman Kevin Flynn both told The Post they were not aware of the police department’s Skydio drone pilot before hearing about it from the newspaper, even though they are both on the city’s Surveillance Technology Task Force. The new group began meeting in August largely to consider Flock license-plate readers, as well as other types of surveillance technology, Gonzales-Gutierrez said.
“We haven’t talked about it in the task force, and the charge of our work in the task force is to come up with those guardrails that need to be put in place for these types of technology being utilized by law enforcement,” she said. “I feel like they just keep moving on without us being able to complete our work.”
Police don’t need permission from the City Council to carry out the pilot programs, Gonzales-Gutierrez said, but she was disappointed by the lack of communication and collaboration from the department.
Flynn sees the potential of police drones, particularly in speeding up officer response times, which can sometimes be dismal in the far-flung areas of his southwestern district.
“If a drone can get there to a 911 call and it can help an officer at headquarters assess the scene before a staffed car could get there, I would love that,” he said.
But he wants to be sure they are used in a way that respects residents’ rights. He would not support using the drones for general patrolling or surveillance, he said.
“This pilot is an excellent opportunity to test all of those boundaries and see if there are ways to operate a system that can be very useful for public safety without crossing boundaries,” he said.”…And maybe we don’t keep using them. That is the point of a pilot.”
‘These are flying cops’
The Skydio drones film from the moment they are launched until they drop in to land.
When the drone is on its way to a call — flying at the 200-foot altitude limit set by the Federal Aviation Administration — its cameras remain pointed at the horizon. In Denver’s denser neighborhoods, the Skydio drones at that height flew among buildings, sometimes at eye-level with balconies, offices and apartment windows, according to video of four flights obtained by The Post through an open records request.
“What if someone is in their apartment unit in one of these giant buildings and they’re changing, and they have their window open because they’re way up high and they don’t think anyone is watching them?” Gonzales-Gutierrez said. “That is crazy.”
The drones buzzed over rooftop decks, balconies and elevated apartment complex pools, the videos show. On one trip, a drone flew past the Colorado State Capitol Building, recording three people on a balcony on the tower under the building’s golden dome. Another time, the drone pilot zoomed in on a license plate so tightly that the car’s small, decorative “LOVE” decal was clearly visible.
Flynn noted that a 200-foot altitude would put the drones well above most of the homes in his less-dense district, and that people on their porches or balconies aren’t somewhere private.
“If someone is out on a balcony, sitting there reading a book… generally speaking, if you are out in public there’s no expectation of privacy,” he said.
The Skydio drones recorded about 54 hours of footage in the first eight weeks of their operation, according to data provided by the police department. Police leadership opted to have the drones’ cameras on and recording whenever the drone is in flight to boost transparency about how the drones are being used, Barnes said.
“It makes sense to keep the camera rolling,” Barnes said. “Then, if there’s an allegation, we just make sure that footage is recorded and treated like digital evidence, uploaded to the evidence management platform so it could be reviewed as necessary. We’re just trying to make sure we establish that balance, being as transparent as possible.”
Drone footage unrelated to criminal investigations is automatically deleted after 60 days, he said. While it’s retained, it’s stored in an evidence system that keeps a record of anyone who looks at it. The drone unit’s sergeant, Brent Kohls, also audits the flight reports monthly. (Footage used in criminal investigations will be on the same retention schedule as body-worn camera footage, police said.)
Kohls noted it would be unusual for the drone footage to be viewed only by the pilot. The feed is often displayed on the wall of the police department’s Real-Time Crime Center as it comes in.
ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the organization’s speech, privacy and technology project, would rather see police keep the recording off while flying a drone to a call, even if the camera is still livestreaming to police headquarters. In that scenario, a drone pilot might still see a woman tanning topless on her rooftop pool deck, he said, but the government wouldn’t then keep a recording of that privacy violation, amplifying it further.
“The thing we are really worried about is police start deploying drones as first responders for the majority of their calls for service and suddenly you have this crisscrossing network of surveillance all over the city,” Freed Wessler said. “You have the potential for a pervasive record of what everyone is doing all the time.”
Kohls said an officer flying a drone who spotted a different crime occurring while en route to another call would stop to report and respond to that secondary crime, just like an officer would on the ground.
“Absolutely, if an officer sees a crime happening, they’re going to get on the radio, alert dispatch to what they’re observing,” Kohls said. “Hopefully, if they have a few minutes of battery time left still, they can extend their time and circle or overwatch on that scene to provide hopefully life-saving radio traffic, whatever information they need to relay to dispatch to get other officers heading, or the fire department heading that way.”
State and federal laws have not yet caught up to how police are using drones, Freed Wessler said. The Fourth Amendment has what’s known as the plain-view exception, which allows police officers who are lawfully in a place to take action if they see evidence of a crime happening in plain sight.
“The problem here is we are not talking about police doing a thing we would normally expect them to do,” Freed Wessler said. “We are talking about police taking advantage of a new technology that gives them a totally new power to fly at virtually no expense over any part of the city at any time of day and see a whole bunch of stuff happening.”
A Denver police drone lands on its docking station on the roof of Denver Police headquarters in Denver, on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Police have broad leeway to watch suspects without first getting a search warrant — like by peering through a fence or climbing the steps of a nearby building to look into a yard. But that’s different from using a subtle video camera to record a person 24/7 for months, the justices concluded.
So far, that’s the closest ruling in Colorado on the issue of drone surveillance, Freed Wessler said. Robinson, the policy director at the ACLU of Colorado, said lawmakers should act to regulate police drone use — either at the state or local level.
“These are flying cops,” said Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital privacy. “That is another one of those slippery slopes.”
Aside from the legality of surveillance, another question is how the drone footage and flight data is used by the drone companies, Lipton said.
“We live in a time where all these AI-fueled companies have a real drive to integrate AI into everything, and they’re really hungry for new data,” she said. “And we have law enforcement helping to feed these companies in a way they don’t really understand.”
Under its current agreement with Denver police, Skydio doesn’t use drone footage to train its algorithm or improve its product. Flock spells out in its contract that the company can “collect, analyze and anonymize” drone footage, then use that anonymized footage to train its “machine learning algorithms,” and enhance its services.
Lipton added that technology is moving fast — Axon, a company that powers many police departments’ body-worn cameras — this month started testing facial recognition on its cameras to automatically alert a police officer if a person they’re encountering has a warrant out for their arrest.
Prisons are experimenting with “movement analysis” to automatically flag a person’s movements as potentially aggressive before the person perpetrates violence, she said.
“We are technologically at a place where it would not be hard for a drone to fly over an area and basically serve as a license-plate reader for humans,” Lipton said. “… Some of this analysis is just not being done because it is not publicly palatable yet. But it is not like it is technologically difficult for some of these companies.”
SEOUL, Nov 30 (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un highlighted the Air Force’s role in exercising nuclear war deterrence as he celebrated the Air Force’s 80th anniversary along with his young daughter, state media reported on Sunday.
Photos released by North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Kim observing what appeared to be unmanned aircraft and mobile missile launchers among others.
North Korea has launched mass production of small, short-range First Person View (FPV) drones, as well as larger medium-range battlefield attack drones, a Ukrainian intelligence official told Reuters earlier.
Dressed in long leather coats, Kim and his daughter watched an air show to mark the anniversary and toured a display of aircraft such as an airborne early-warning aircraft that North Korea unveiled earlier this year, state media photographs showed.
The country’s expectations for the Air Force which, “will play a role in the exercise of the nuclear war deterrent” are truly “great”, state media KCNA cited Kim as saying.
“The Air Force should resolutely repulse and control all sorts of espionage acts and possible military provocations of the enemies,” Kim said, according to KCNA.
Kim added the Air Force would be given new strategic assets, without elaborating.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Diane Craft)
KYIV, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Ukraine hit two tankers used by Russia to export oil while skirting Western sanctions with marine drones in the Black Sea, an official from the SBU security service said on Saturday.
The joint operation to hit the so-called ‘shadow fleet’ vessels was run by the SBU and Ukraine’s navy, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Turkish authorities have said that blasts rocked two shadow fleet tankers near Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait on Friday causing fires on the vessels, and rescue operations were launched for those on board.
The SBU official said both tankers – identified as the Kairos and Virat – were empty and on their way to the port of Novorossiysk, a major Russian oil terminal.
“Video (footage) shows that after being hit, both tankers sustained critical damage and were effectively taken out of service. This will deal a significant blow to Russian oil transportation,” the official said.
They did not say when the strikes took place.
Ukraine has consistently called for tougher international measures for Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’, which it says is helping Moscow export vast quantities of oil and fund its war in Ukraine despite Western sanctions.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, writing by Max Hunder; Editing by Toby Chopra, Kirsten Donovan)
KHERSON, Ukraine — When Olena Horlova leaves home or drives through town outside the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, she fears that she’s a target. She believes that Russian drones could be waiting on a rooftop, along the road or aiming for her car.
To protect herself and her two daughters, the girls stay indoors, and she stays alert — sometimes returning home at night along dark roads without headlights so as not to be seen.
After living through the occupation, refusing to cooperate with Russian forces and hiding from them, Horlova, like so many other residents, found that even after her town was liberated in 2022, the ordeal didn’t end.
Kherson was among the first places where Russian forces began using short-range, first-person view, or FPV, drones against civilians. The drones are equipped with livestreaming cameras that let operators see and select their targets in real time. The tactic later spread more than 300 kilometers (185 miles) along the right bank of the Dnipro River, across the Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.
The United Nations’ Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine says the attacks leave little doubt about their intent. In an October report, the commission said that the attacks have repeatedly killed and wounded civilians, destroyed homes and forced thousands to flee, concluding that they amount to the crimes against humanity of murder and forcible transfer.
“We live with the hope that one day this will finally end,” Horlova said, her voice trembling. “What matters for us is a cease-fire, or for the front line to be pushed further away. Then it would be easier for us.”
Horlova lives in Komyshany, a village just outside Kherson and only 4 kilometers (2½ miles) from the Dnipro River, where the level of intense attacks has remained the same, despite Ukrainian forces retaking the city from Russian occupation in November 2022 — about nine months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 of that year.
But the war didn’t end there. Instead, it shifted into a phase in which the area has effectively become what locals and the military term a “human safari,” describing it as a testing ground where people are often the target of drone attacks.
Horlova says that FPVs often land on rooftops when their batteries run low and then wait out.
“When people, cars or even a cyclist appear, the drone suddenly lifts off and drops the explosive,” she said. “It’s gotten to the point where they even drop them on animals — cows, goats.”
She believes that civilians are hunted as “revenge” for the celebrations that broke out when Kherson was liberated.
The report from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine says the attacks have spread terror among civilians and violated their right to life and other fundamental human rights. Investigators found that Russian units on the occupied left bank of the Dnipro carried out the strikes and identified specific drone units, operators and commanders involved. They also noted that Russian Telegram channels routinely share videos of the attacks, often with mocking captions and threats of more.
The U.N. commission said that it examined Russian claims that Ukrainian forces had launched drone attacks on civilians in occupied areas, unable to conclude its investigation because it lacked access to the territory, couldn’t ensure witness safety and didn’t receive answers from Russian authorities.
Interceptions obtained by The Associated Press from the 310th Separate Marine Electronic Warfare Battalion show Russian FPV drones that appear to be hunting for vehicles. The videos capture drones flying low over roads and locking onto moving or parked cars — often pickups, supply vehicles, sedans and even clearly marked ambulances — before diving for a strike.
The commander of the 310th Battalion, which protects the skies over 470 kilometers (nearly 300 miles) of southern Ukraine, including Kherson, says at least 300 drones fly toward the city every day. In October alone, the number of drones that flew over Kherson was 9,000.
“This area is like a training ground,” said the battalion’s commander, Dmytro Liashok, a 16-year military veteran and one of Ukraine’s early pioneers in electronic warfare. “They bring new Russian crews here to gain experience before sending them elsewhere.” The AP couldn’t independently verify the claim.
Despite the sheer volume of drones — a figure that excludes other types of weapons like artillery and glide bombs — his forces manage to neutralize more than 90%, he said.
According to the U.N. human rights office, short-range drone attacks have become the leading cause of civilian casualties near the front line. Local authorities say that since July 2024, more than 200 civilians have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded in three southern regions, with most victims being men. Nearly 3,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed.
During a surprise visit to Kherson in November, Angelina Jolie described the constant overhead threat as “a heavy presence.”
“There was a moment when we had to pause and wait while a drone flew overhead,” she wrote on Instagram. “I was in protective gear, and for me it was just a couple of days. The families here live with this every single day.”
At one of Kherson’s main hospitals treating drone victims, 70-year-old Nataliia Naumova is recovering after a strike by a Shahed drone, which carries a heavier explosive than FPV drones, left her with a blast injury to her left leg on Oct. 20.
She says the strike hit during the night as she waited at a school in the village of Inzhenerne, where she had been temporarily sheltered, for an evacuation bus that was due to arrive the next morning.
“There were so many drones flying over us,” she said, adding that she rarely left home even after its windows were shattered and boarded up. “People there survive, not live. I never thought such a tragedy would happen to me.”
Dr. Yevhen Haran, the hospital’s deputy medical chief, says the injuries from drone strikes range from amputations to fatal wounds.
“It’s simply hunting for people. There’s no other name for it,” he said.
He says patients wounded in Russian attacks, including drone strikes, arrive at the hospital every day. Last month alone, it treated 85 inpatients and 105 outpatients with blast injuries, all from shelling and drone strikes. It’s also the only hospital in the area equipped to handle the most serious cases.
Haran himself came under FPV drone fire on Aug. 26 while driving from nearby Mykolaiv with his wife. Rescuers stopped their car on the highway, warning that a drone was overhead.
“I pulled in behind them. The drone circled and, on the next pass, flew straight into their vehicle — the driver’s door,” he recalled. Shrapnel tore through the front car, while his, parked behind, shielded him.
He reached the hospital with a hypertensive crisis and was later treated for a concussion. “Sometimes I still lose words and feel unsteady,” he said. “It all happened in less than 10 minutes.”
For people in Kherson, the experience of occupation, and the moment the city was freed, still shapes how they endure the constant drone attacks.
“We held out until liberation — we’ll hold out until peace as well,” he said.
and Nikita Nikolaienko | Photography by Serhii Korovayny for WSJ
KYIV, Ukraine—Nataliia Melnychenko stood outside a residential building hit by a Russian drone early Tuesday, with dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t slept since the drone struck her building at 2:30 a.m.
“I’ve learned over these years that Russian missile strikes usually follow every attempt at peace initiatives,” said Melnychenko. “On top of Russian attacks, we now also have pressure from our allies,” she added.
(Reuters) -Russian forces staged a “massive” drone attack on Sunday on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, killing one person and injuring at least four, officials said.
“There is a massive attack on Kharkiv,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram messaging app. He said one person was killed in the central Shevchenkivskyi district of the city in northeastern Ukraine after a drone strike on a private house.
Emergency crews were dispatched to the area.
Kharkiv, located 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border, withstood Russian attempts to capture it early in the more than 3-1/2-year-old war and has since been a frequent target of attacks.
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Russians look back at 2025, they might remember it as the year when the government took even tighter control of the internet.
Credit cards that won’t buy a ticket on public transport. ATMs that don’t connect to a network. Messaging apps that are down. Cellphones that don’t receive texts or data after a trip abroad. Mothers of diabetic children even complain with alarm that they can’t monitor their kids’ blood glucose levels during outages.
The cellphone internet shutdowns, ostensibly to thwart Ukrainian drone attacks, have hit dozens of Russian regions for months. Popular messaging apps also are restricted, with the government promoting a state-controlled app seen by critics as a possible surveillance tool.
Although broadband and Wi-Fi internet access remain unaffected, Russians contacted by The Associated Press described digital disruptions to their daily lives. All spoke on condition of not being fully identified for their own safety.
Blackouts and ‘white lists’ are part of Russian strategy
Widespread cellphone internet shutdowns began in May and persisted through summer and into the fall. In November, 57 Russian regions on average reported daily disruptions to cellphone links, according to Na Svyazi, an activist group monitoring shutdowns.
Authorities say these outages are designed to prevent Ukrainian drones from tapping mobile networks for navigation.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they are “absolutely justified and necessary,” but analyst Kateryna Stepanenko of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said they haven’t been effective in curbing the intensity of Ukraine’s drone attacks, “given the amount of strikes we’ve seen in recent months on Russian oil refineries.”
In many regions, only a handful of government-approved Russian websites and online services — designated as being on “white lists” — are available during connectivity blackouts.
What’s available on the “white lists” varies by provider and includes official websites, email and social media platforms, two online markets, and the Russian search engine Yandex and its services. One provider offers access to a banking app, but others don’t. Authorities have promised to expand the lists.
Marina, who lives in the Pacific coast city of Vladivostok, described her anxiety when she discovered only one app for a government-controlled bank was working during a mobile internet outage and she wondered what this meant for the future.
“For me, this is the scariest thing,” she said. “The loss of information, the loss of freedom, essentially, is the most depressing thing for me.”
In the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) east of Moscow, one resident described how his credit card didn’t work when he tapped it on the payment terminal on a tram during an outage. He wasn’t carrying enough cash.
Families with diabetic children say they can’t monitor their children’s glucose levels via special apps when they are at school and cellphone internet is down. Mothers in social media posts explain that children often can miss the moment when their blood sugar levels change, requiring an intervention, and special apps allowed parents to see that remotely and warn them. Connection outages disrupt that.
Authorities have tried touting the joys of reconnecting with a technology-free lifestyle.
Internet regulatory agency Roskomnadzor posted a cartoon on social media showing two views of a young man: one in a dark apartment staring at his phone and another strolling happily in a park, carrying a cup of coffee and a book.
Going offline “doesn’t mean losing touch. Sometimes it means getting in touch with yourself,” the cartoon advised.
But the post mostly drew angry and sarcastic comments.
Restrictions set on SIM cards
One recent anti-drone restriction sets 24-hour “cooling periods” during which data and texts are blocked from SIM cards that were carried abroad or have been inactive for 72 hours. The owner can unblock it via a link received by text message.
Unblocking becomes impossible, however, if a SIM card is used in internet-connected appliances or equipment without interfaces for receiving text messages, like portable Wi-Fi routers, cars or meter boxes.
Lawmaker Andrei Svintsov noted that Russia has many electricity meters with SIM cards that transmit readings once a month.
“Does this mean they’ll all die? All the heating boilers will shut down, and all the Chinese cars will stop working? This is a massive problem, and I don’t know if the government is even aware of it,” he said.
Messaging apps are targeted
Other restrictions targeted two popular messaging apps: WhatsApp, with about 96 million monthly users in October, and Telegram, with 91 million, according to media monitoring group Mediascope.
Authorities began restricting calls on these apps in August, supposedly to stop phone scams, and are throttling them in some parts of Russia. Yelena, in the southern city of Krasnodar, recalled a time in October when Telegram wasn’t available at all, affecting the work of her and her colleagues.
Neither app is on the government “white list.”
On the list is Russian messaging service MAX. Authorities actively promote it and since September the service is required to be preinstalled on all smartphones in Russia. Critics see it as a surveillance tool as MAX openly declares it will share user data with authorities upon request. Experts also say it doesn’t use end-to-end encryption.
State institutions, officials and businesses are being encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX. Marina, the Vladivostok resident, said her employers are insisting on people using MAX, to little enthusiasm. She said she doesn’t plan to install it, and neither do others contacted by the AP.
MAX developers boast of about 50 million users registering on the platform that it says provides messaging and other services.
Mediascope said MAX had about 48 million monthly users in October, but only 18.9 million average daily users, which is far less than the average daily totals of 81 million for WhatsApp and 68 million for Telegram.
Russians shrug at restrictions
Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, Russia’s top independent pollster, said many Russians regard the restrictions the same way they feel about the weather: Ultimately, you can do nothing about it.
The authorities’ strategy appears to be to make it difficult for average users to access “alternative content” so that they eventually stop seeking it, Volkov said. Those “who are not that interested will pick simpler channels and ways” to navigate the internet, he said.
That sentiment was echoed by the Ulyanovsk resident who said he uses a virtual private network to access some of the blocked websites and platforms, but VPNs also are routinely blocked, so he must install a new one every few months.
His tight circle of friends trade recommendations on VPNs, but he believes most people won’t make that much effort.
Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society activist group, says the internet is tied to too many economic activities to shut it totally.
“Groceries are being shipped to stores — this is being done via internet, the ordering, the processing, and so on,” he said. “A truck is on the road, it is connected to an information system, maps, navigation, all of it.”
But he forecasts more stifling of websites, VPNs and platforms including totally blocking messenger apps Telegram and WhatsApp and possibly other, unexpected measures.
“Honestly, I’m watching it all with raised eyebrows. They seem to have come up with everything already, and they’re still coming up with something more,” he said.
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Russians look back at 2025, they might remember it as the year when the government took even tighter control of the internet.
Credit cards that won’t buy a ticket on public transport. ATMs that don’t connect to a network. Messaging apps that are down. Cellphones that don’t receive texts or data after a trip abroad. Mothers of diabetic children even complain with alarm that they can’t monitor their kids’ blood glucose levels during outages.
The cellphone internet shutdowns, ostensibly to thwart Ukrainian drone attacks, have hit dozens of Russian regions for months. Popular messaging apps also are restricted, with the government promoting a state-controlled app seen by critics as a possible surveillance tool.
Although broadband and Wi-Fi internet access remain unaffected, Russians contacted by The Associated Press described digital disruptions to their daily lives. All spoke on condition of not being fully identified for their own safety.
Blackouts and ‘white lists’ are part of Russian strategy
Widespread cellphone internet shutdowns began in May and persisted through summer and into the fall. In November, 57 Russian regions on average reported daily disruptions to cellphone links, according to Na Svyazi, an activist group monitoring shutdowns.
Authorities say these outages are designed to prevent Ukrainian drones from tapping mobile networks for navigation.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they are “absolutely justified and necessary,” but analyst Kateryna Stepanenko of the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said they haven’t been effective in curbing the intensity of Ukraine’s drone attacks, “given the amount of strikes we’ve seen in recent months on Russian oil refineries.”
In many regions, only a handful of government-approved Russian websites and online services — designated as being on “white lists” — are available during connectivity blackouts.
What’s available on the “white lists” varies by provider and includes official websites, email and social media platforms, two online markets, and the Russian search engine Yandex and its services. One provider offers access to a banking app, but others don’t. Authorities have promised to expand the lists.
Marina, who lives in the Pacific coast city of Vladivostok, described her anxiety when she discovered only one app for a government-controlled bank was working during a mobile internet outage and she wondered what this meant for the future.
“For me, this is the scariest thing,” she said. “The loss of information, the loss of freedom, essentially, is the most depressing thing for me.”
In the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) east of Moscow, one resident described how his credit card didn’t work when he tapped it on the payment terminal on a tram during an outage. He wasn’t carrying enough cash.
Families with diabetic children say they can’t monitor their children’s glucose levels via special apps when they are at school and cellphone internet is down. Mothers in social media posts explain that children often can miss the moment when their blood sugar levels change, requiring an intervention, and special apps allowed parents to see that remotely and warn them. Connection outages disrupt that.
Authorities have tried touting the joys of reconnecting with a technology-free lifestyle.
Internet regulatory agency Roskomnadzor posted a cartoon on social media showing two views of a young man: one in a dark apartment staring at his phone and another strolling happily in a park, carrying a cup of coffee and a book.
Going offline “doesn’t mean losing touch. Sometimes it means getting in touch with yourself,” the cartoon advised.
But the post mostly drew angry and sarcastic comments.
Restrictions set on SIM cards
One recent anti-drone restriction sets 24-hour “cooling periods” during which data and texts are blocked from SIM cards that were carried abroad or have been inactive for 72 hours. The owner can unblock it via a link received by text message.
Unblocking becomes impossible, however, if a SIM card is used in internet-connected appliances or equipment without interfaces for receiving text messages, like portable Wi-Fi routers, cars or meter boxes.
Lawmaker Andrei Svintsov noted that Russia has many electricity meters with SIM cards that transmit readings once a month.
“Does this mean they’ll all die? All the heating boilers will shut down, and all the Chinese cars will stop working? This is a massive problem, and I don’t know if the government is even aware of it,” he said.
Messaging apps are targeted
Other restrictions targeted two popular messaging apps: WhatsApp, with about 96 million monthly users in October, and Telegram, with 91 million, according to media monitoring group Mediascope.
Authorities began restricting calls on these apps in August, supposedly to stop phone scams, and are throttling them in some parts of Russia. Yelena, in the southern city of Krasnodar, recalled a time in October when Telegram wasn’t available at all, affecting the work of her and her colleagues.
Neither app is on the government “white list.”
On the list is Russian messaging service MAX. Authorities actively promote it and since September the service is required to be preinstalled on all smartphones in Russia. Critics see it as a surveillance tool as MAX openly declares it will share user data with authorities upon request. Experts also say it doesn’t use end-to-end encryption.
State institutions, officials and businesses are being encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX. Marina, the Vladivostok resident, said her employers are insisting on people using MAX, to little enthusiasm. She said she doesn’t plan to install it, and neither do others contacted by the AP.
MAX developers boast of about 50 million users registering on the platform that it says provides messaging and other services.
Mediascope said MAX had about 48 million monthly users in October, but only 18.9 million average daily users, which is far less than the average daily totals of 81 million for WhatsApp and 68 million for Telegram.
Russians shrug at restrictions
Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, Russia’s top independent pollster, said many Russians regard the restrictions the same way they feel about the weather: Ultimately, you can do nothing about it.
The authorities’ strategy appears to be to make it difficult for average users to access “alternative content” so that they eventually stop seeking it, Volkov said. Those “who are not that interested will pick simpler channels and ways” to navigate the internet, he said.
That sentiment was echoed by the Ulyanovsk resident who said he uses a virtual private network to access some of the blocked websites and platforms, but VPNs also are routinely blocked, so he must install a new one every few months.
His tight circle of friends trade recommendations on VPNs, but he believes most people won’t make that much effort.
Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society activist group, says the internet is tied to too many economic activities to shut it totally.
“Groceries are being shipped to stores — this is being done via internet, the ordering, the processing, and so on,” he said. “A truck is on the road, it is connected to an information system, maps, navigation, all of it.”
But he forecasts more stifling of websites, VPNs and platforms including totally blocking messenger apps Telegram and WhatsApp and possibly other, unexpected measures.
“Honestly, I’m watching it all with raised eyebrows. They seem to have come up with everything already, and they’re still coming up with something more,” he said.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Archer Aviation, a leading developer of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, just made one of its boldest moves yet. The company agreed to acquire Hawthorne Airport for $126 million in cash.
According to Archer’s latest shareholder letter, the deal includes the remaining 30 years on the airport’s master lease and an exclusive option to take a controlling stake in the on-site fixed-base operator, subject to city approval.
This historic 80-acre site includes about 190,000 square feet of terminals, office space and hangars. Its location near LAX and major Los Angeles destinations makes it a prime spot for an air taxi network that aims to change how people move in crowded cities.
Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide — free when you join my CYBERGUY.COM newsletter.
A rendering of Archer’s development plans for Hawthorne Airport in Los Angeles.(Archer Aviation)
Why Hawthorne Airport matters for the new air taxi network
Archer Aviation plans to use the airport as the main operational hub for its LA air taxi network. The company also plans to prepare the site to support transportation during the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This includes managing everything from takeoff scheduling to ground operations. In its shareholder letter, Archer frames Hawthorne as a “plug-and-play” anchor hub for its LA28 Olympic plans, saying it expects to ramp up aircraft testing, storage, maintenance and charging on-site as it prepares for commercial service.
The airport will also become a test bed for next-generation AI-powered aviation systems. These tools will help Archer develop smarter air traffic management, faster turnaround times and safer operations in crowded airspace.
Archer outlines a two-phase plan in the letter. Phase 1 focuses on redeveloping up to 200,000 square feet of hangars and locking in control of the FBO, while Phase 2 layers in AI air traffic and ground management, smart sensor-embedded runways and a more digital, streamlined passenger experience.
United Airlines CFO Michael Leskinen praised the move and said, “Archer’s trajectory validates our conviction that eVTOLs are part of the next generation of air traffic technology that will fundamentally reshape aviation. Their vision for an AI-enabled operations platform isn’t just about eVTOLs, it’s also about leveraging cutting-edge technology to better enable moving people safely and efficiently in our most congested airspaces. Through United’s investment arm, United Airlines Ventures, we’re investing in companies like Archer that pioneer technologies that will define and support aviation infrastructure for decades to come.”
Meanwhile, Hawthorne Mayor Alex Vargas celebrated the deal on social media, writing “WELCOME ARCHER TO THE CITY OF HAWTHORNE!”
Archer plans to turn Hawthorne Airport into the main hub for its LA air taxi network.(Archer Aviation)
Neighbors outraged over ‘AI air taxi’ takeover
Not everyone is cheering Archer’s plan to turn Hawthorne into a flagship hub for AI-guided flying taxis. A local group called Hawthorne Quiet Skies, made up of residents living around the airport, says it was blindsided by the $126 million takeover and that no one from the company or city bothered to engage it before announcing a “test bed for AI-powered aviation technologies” over homes.
Neighbors who live just across the street and within a couple of blocks of the runway describe Hawthorne as one of the most tightly packed airports in the country, with homes on three sides and years of complaints about deafening jet and helicopter noise. The city’s own 2021 noise study identified more than 160 homes and roughly 480 people already exposed to unhealthy noise levels, yet residents say there has been “zero progress” on mitigation even as the airport shifted from small private planes to commercial traffic and now an around-the-clock eVTOL hub.
The group is also raising alarms about Archer’s AI ambitions, pointing to academic research that current machine-learning systems in aviation still struggle to handle unusual conditions and lack formal safety guarantees.
They argue that whatever the promises of cleaner, futuristic air taxis, Hawthorne is being used as a live test site without clear safeguards, updated federal noise rules or any serious plan to compensate families if nonstop eVTOL traffic makes their homes too loud to live in.
How Archer Aviation is funding growth and expanding its air taxi program
Alongside the airport news, Archer reported major financial momentum. The company raised an additional $650 million in equity, which boosted its total liquidity to more than $2 billion. The company’s Midnight aircraft also hit new flight milestones, including a 55-mile flight at over 126 mph and a climb to 10,000 feet.
Archer also expanded its global technology footprint. It completed the acquisition of Lilium’s patent portfolio, which pushes Archer’s total intellectual property to more than 1,000 global assets. Those patents cover ducted fans, high voltage systems, flight controls and other key technologies.
International expansion is underway, too. Archer began test and demo flights in the UAE and secured new partnerships with Korean Air and with Japan Airlines and Sumitomo’s JV in Osaka and Tokyo.
The airport will serve as a test bed for next-generation AI aviation systems designed to manage busy airspace more safely.(Archer Aviation)
What this means for you
Archer’s airport deal suggests that air taxis are moving closer to everyday use. This shift could mean shorter trips across major cities at a fraction of today’s travel time. It could also bring quieter aircraft over neighborhoods compared to helicopters.
For Los Angeles residents, Hawthorne Airport may become a central point for fast point-to-point travel once certification moves forward. Visitors flying in for major events like the LA28 Olympics could see air taxis as a smooth alternative to gridlocked freeways.
Businesses may gain new options for rapid transport across the region. The move also signals more investment and jobs in advanced aviation, automation and clean electric travel.
Take my quiz: How safe is your online security?
Think your devices and data are truly protected? Take this quick quiz to see where your digital habits stand. From passwords to Wi-Fi settings, you’ll get a personalized breakdown of what you’re doing right and what needs improvement. Take my Quiz here: Cyberguy.com.
Archer’s acquisition of Hawthorne Airport marks a major milestone in the race to build a real air taxi network, giving the company the aircraft, funding and prime location it needs to push the industry forward. Its focus on AI-driven operations shows how automated aviation may soon play a much bigger role in daily life, even as regulators are still working out how to safely integrate these aircraft into crowded cities. At the same time, the move is already sparking backlash from neighbors who worry about more noise and safety risks and being turned into a test site for AI-guided aircraft without a real say. If Archer can win over regulators, investors and the communities living just beyond the fence line, this step could make the future of urban flight feel much closer, for better or worse.
If air taxis become a real option in Los Angeles by 2028, would you try one for your daily commute or stick to the ground? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
Sign up for my FREE CyberGuy Report Get my best tech tips, urgent security alerts and exclusive deals delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, you’ll get instant access to my Ultimate Scam Survival Guide — free when you join my CYBERGUY.COM newsletter.
Copyright 2025 CyberGuy.com. All rights reserved.
Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday that 33 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted and destroyed over five Russian regions, Crimea and the Black sea overnight.
At least eight Russian airports had been forced to suspend operations during the night, according to Russia’s aviation watchdog.
Two people had been injured in the city of Slavyansk-on-Kuban in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia and classes at schools and kindergartens had been suspended due to a drone attack, the local emergencies centre said.
In the Rostov region, where seven drones had been downed, an electricity pylon was damaged, leaving over 200 houses without power, Yuri Slyusar, the local governor, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
