The future of war has been evolving before our eyes in Ukraine, yet the west still plans to fight the last war. In this special episode, guest host (@noahpinion) and sit down with Yaroslav Azhnyuk (@YaroslavAzhnyuk), a serial tech founder who went from building PetCube to founding The Fourth Law, one of the world’s most advanced AI-guided drone companies. Over two hours we cover the technology, tactics, and geopolitics of drone warfare, and why the modern battlefield has already left the West behind:
Yaroslav’s personal history and the Ukraine war [00:01:04 – 00:14:01]
The modern drone tech stack: why FPV drones are the new god of war, the future of the rifleman, fiber optic vs. AI, five levels of autonomy, and the eight dimensions of the autonomous battlefield [00:14:01 – 01:05:13]
The geopolitics and economics of drones: China’s manufacturing advantage, the drone race, Western defense readiness, countermeasures, and why the gap is widening [01:05:13 – 01:58:57]
For those looking for ’s commentary, it really gets going around the 00:51:31 mark.
Yaroslav Azhnyuk / The Fourth Law:
X: https://x.com/YaroslavAzhnyuk
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaroslavazhnyuk/
The Fourth Law: https://thefourthlaw.ai
Noah Smith:
Substack:
X: https://x.com/noahpinion
Timestamps00:00:00 Cold Open: China’s 4 Billion Drones and the Cameras-to-Explosives Pipeline
00:01:04 Introduction: Brandon, Noah Smith, and Yaroslav Azhnyuk
00:05:41 From Tech Entrepreneur to Defense: PetCube, Brave One, and the D3 Fund
00:10:42 The Ethics of Building Weapons: Dual-Use Technology and the Wolf at the Door
00:14:01 The Tech Stack: Cameras, Autonomy Modules, Interceptors, and a Semiconductor Fab
00:18:47 Fiber Optic vs. AI: The Radio Horizon Problem and $32/km Cable
00:25:32 FPV Drones: The New God of War — 70–80% of Frontline Casualties
00:28:28 The Five Levels of Drone Autonomy: From Terminal Guidance to Full Autonomy
00:41:37 The Eight Dimensions of the Autonomous Battlefield
00:45:32 AI Safety and the Morality of Autonomous Weapons
00:51:31 The End of the Rifleman? Noah’s 2013 Prediction vs. Battlefield Reality
01:05:13 China’s Manufacturing Advantage and Western Vulnerabilities
01:24:21 Policy Advice for Western Defense: Defense Valley and the Widening Gap
01:32:54 The Drone Race: Who’s Ahead, Category by Category
01:41:57 Countermeasures: Shotguns, Jammers, Lasers, and Fishnets
01:58:19 The Wedding and Final Takeaway: Be Prepared for War
TranscriptCold Open: China, FPV Drones, and the New Warning SignYaroslav [00:00:00]: Think about this. Last year, Ukraine produced 4 million FPV drones. Ukraine is not the most industrious nation in the world. China can produce 4 billion of these FPV drones.
Noah [00:00:10]: Would you say that right now China is now the supreme conventional military power on Earth, given its ability to manufacture and deploy drones in the quantity and quality that you just described?
Yaroslav [00:00:20]: I don’t think we have all the information to claim that but we cannot count it out, and that alone should be a big warning sign. As I say, at some point in my life I went from making cameras that fling treats to pets to cameras that fling explosives to the occupiers. So that’s the short story. And when you think about what your nation, what your patriots are going through, you realize that’s the only morally right thing to do is to fight back, and it is immoral not to fight back, and then the choice becomes very clear.
Introduction: Yaroslav Azhnyuk, Petcube, and the Last Flight into KyivBrandon [00:01:04]: Welcome to Latent Space. I’m Brandon. I normally do science podcasts, but today we’re going to do something a little bit different. I’m joined by Noah Smith of Noahpinion on Substack and Twitter. And he has lots of interesting things to say about drones. And as a guest, we have Yaroslav Azhnyuk, founder of The Fourth Law and several other, drone-related startups. To get started, it is February 23rd, 2022. You are running a pet startup. You’re connecting pets with their owners. Let’s go in just a little bit of background. How did you get started in tech, and what were you working on before the Ukrainian war started?
Yaroslav [00:01:50]: Good to be here. Thank you. On February 23rd, late in the evening, 11:00 PM Kyiv time, my wife and I landed in Kyiv. Actually, then she was a fiance. We came from Lviv, where we were looking at a church, where our wedding should have taken place. And we got into this cab ride from the airport to our home, and the driver was like, “You crazy. Like, everyone’s leaving Kyiv. Why do you come?” We’re like, “What? Nothing’s going to happen. Dude, chill.” And then obviously, eight minutes later, or eight hours later, the bombs fell in the city. It was quite surreal. We probably landed on the last flight that landed in Kyiv, or one of those last flights. My background, I’m a tech guy. Studied applied mathematics in Kyiv Polytechnics, born and raised in Kyiv. My parents are old PhDs from academia, and grandparents too. Like, everything, from linguistics to nuclear physics. And I’m an entrepreneur, so I’ve built a bunch of companies. Petcube is the one you were referencing. So I lived in San Francisco 2014 to 2020, building Petcube, which is one of the leading, pet device companies in the world, selling lots of pet cameras. And then, yeah, as I say, at some point in my life I went from making cameras that fling treats to pets to cameras that fling explosives to the occupiers. So that’s the short story.
February 24th: Leaving Kyiv as the Invasion BeginsNoah [00:03:28]: February 24th, I guess a few hours after you, go to check out your wedding chapel, what do you do?
Yaroslav [00:03:37]: We had a plan for this situation. So my parents and family live in Kyiv, and we’re like, “Okay, this has actually started. The worst has, come true.” And so we basically packed our belongings and got in the car and spent 17 hours driving west. And that was pretty sure most people in our audience watched at least one apocalyptic movie in their life, so that was exactly like that. Like, felt exactly like that. Missiles are falling. Like, there was smoke in Kyiv. Like, my dad and I went, like, to central part of the cities. It’s probably, like
Yaroslav [00:04:20]: 800 meters from presidential office, to pick some stuff up at his workplace. Because he’s, like, the head of an academic institution, so he had to get some of the things with him. And super surreal. Like, the streets are empty. Like, the gas stations are out of gas. Like, we found some gas station. We didn’t have, like, spare canisters with us, so we’re like, We figured out, like, the car was diesel, so like, we figured out, if it’s diesel, you can actually store it in plastic, canisters, and we bought some window wash for the cars. We poured it out of the canisters, and we poured the diesel into that. Yeah, so it was like that. And then, like, helping friends get out, like my friend and his dog. Like, we found Like, my brother was also, like, riding in a separate car. We found a place for my friend who didn’t have a car. It was like, yeah, it was like, totally surreal. And we didn’t know of course, and you didn’t know this will last for so long. You didn’t know whether Ukraine will be able to defend Kyiv. And it was like, yeah, very little information and very little insight into future.
From Pet Cameras to Defense Tech: Building for Ukraine and the Free WorldNoah [00:05:42]: What are your thoughts with regards to how do you, defend, Ukraine? So you eventually start building drones Like, what is the process to get from there from where you were building, devices that connect owners with pets to building drones, and what other things did you do to help the war effort in the process?
Yaroslav [00:06:07]: It’s definitely non-trivial, right? Like, I didn’t go, to I didn’t get any, like, military education when I was a student. Like, normally, in Ukraine, you would, you would go to like, this military school even if you’re getting higher education in any other, sphere. I decided to skip that which is like, an unusual way to go. And I never thought that I will be somehow engaged in a war effort. Like, what is war? Of course, wars are over. It’s the end of history. So one thing you got to understand about, like, many Ukrainians and like, I guess, it’s also true about most of the people I met here in the US, that your who you are in terms of your nationality is a big part of your identity. So when that gets under attack, it’s something deeper than just the country you live in gets under attack, right? And I Day one, I figured I’m going to I’m going to fight back with everything I can, right? But I didn’t think on day one that I’m actually going to do, weapons. And a bunch of things. We were reaching out to a number of American, congresspeople and senators, and basically advocating for support of Ukraine, for voting for lend lease, which has happened in May 2022, but didn’t actually work as expected. We helped start, Brave One, which is now a very important defense innovation cluster, sort of like a DIU here in the US. We helped start, a fund called D3. It’s like, it was started or co-started by Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google. So a bunch of these odd things, but then eventually I was like, “Okay,”by 2023 it was obvious this thing, A is going to last a lot more time, and B, that the whole world is shifting and that there’s going to be a new arms race, that the warfare is redefined by drones as platforms. And for the first time in history, you have a platform that is software defined, that can increase your battlefield capabilities, in a in a step change just overnight. So it’s like if you were able to push a software update and get all of your Roman legionnaires a new helmet? That has never been possible before. It’s the first time in the history of war this is possible. So all of that and many other things like, supply chain fragilization, and the impact that AI is going to have on all of this all these things have become evident to me in 2023, and it’s like, “Okay, I should do what I do best, or what I know how to do best, start a tech company, and sort of leverage the global techno capitalist machine, to provide, defensibility to Ukraine and the free world.” So that’s literally the mission of the company, increase defensibility of Ukraine and the free world. And then there was some sort of soul-searching and like, asking yourself. It’s like, “Okay, am I Actually, I know nothing about weapons. Am I actually, like, ready to make, things that other people use to kill other bad people?”
Yaroslav [00:09:36]: When you think about what your nation, what your Compatriots are going through And think about all the terror of places like Bucha, the occupied cities in the east and south, the abducted children, the raped women, all the economic damage that’s being done, and the intention to destroy a whole nation, to genocide the people of Ukraine, you realize that’s the only morally right thing to do is to fight back, and it is immoral not to fight back. And then the choice becomes very clear. And look, we’re just passing the ammunition. We’re not doing the actual job. The actual fighters and defenders and heroes are people in the armed forces. We’re just support.
The Moral Question: Weapons, Responsibility, and Fighting BackNoah [00:10:33]: I have so many questions. Actually, I know you seem to have a question. Do you want to ask anything?
Yaroslav [00:10:38]: No, I’m just listening. Go ahead.
Noah [00:10:40]: I do want to talk about, some of let’s say, the moral issues, like you just said. You end
Yaroslav [00:10:50]: I think there are no issues there.
Yaroslav [00:10:52]: What would an example of a moral question be in this case?
Noah [00:10:55]: No, I mean Okay. As you just said, you are creating the tools, but others are using them.
Noah [00:11:05]: I was maybe thinking of having this conversation later, but one of the questions is like, is it actually you are going to be building them for your homeland, which you are building it for your homeland, which is I think, very a strong morally defensible position, but this technology is not going to stay with you, right?
Noah [00:11:26]: This you will probably be selling these to other people Yeah. So the future is really where the moral issues may come into play
Yaroslav [00:11:38]: The this question becomes, easier and more complete if we ask this not about a particular technology or particular weapon, if we think that this question actually applies to any kind of technology Right? So -Knife or fire. You can use knife to do surgery and save people’s lives, or you can use it as a weapon to take people’s lives.
Noah [00:12:06]: Cut tomatoes, too.
Yaroslav [00:12:08]: Cut tomatoes too.
Noah [00:12:09]: Yes, knife.
Yaroslav [00:12:09]: That’s helpful.
Noah [00:12:10]: In Japan, sword and knife, they, call the same word.
Yaroslav [00:12:14]: It’s like, it’s with any technology. Large language models, right? Look at how powerful they are and yet they’re available to anyone in North Korea or in Russia.
Yaroslav [00:12:29]: That’s one side of the argument. The other side is As a maker, what is your responsibility for how the tools you’re creating, will be used? There’s definitely some responsibility, right? Then How should the decision process look like? Should you, like, try to calculate all the possible scenarios before starting to work on something? Or do you create something that is needed now to save people’s lives, and then think about, addressing the unwanted edge cases later? In ideal world where there’s like, or okay, it’s not ideal world. In a mythical world where there is some one governing party and it gets to decide everything, and there is no other country, that can, decide on their own, you could say, “Well, we need to calculate for all the consequences, and only then, maybe build this building, by replacing this park because, maybe we need this park in the city,”right? So that kind of situation. But when you’re in a situation where you’re in a forest, in front of a wolf, you first going to deal with the wolf that wants to eat you, and then you’re going to go consult Greenpeace. So that’s kind of situation that Ukraine is in.
The Fourth Law, Odd Systems, and Ukraine’s Drone StackNoah [00:13:59]: Enough. Because this is a tech podcast, I did want to spend some time talking about, sort of the tech in that you’ve developed and what you’ve been working on. So can you explain, I guess, first of all, like, the problem that you were trying to solve from a technical standpoint? And I think, and then maybe, like, go into some of the solutions and some of the design process that led you from designing, little laser-guided, guiding lasers with a with an iPhone versus Having drones.
Yaroslav [00:14:34]: Like, it so happened, that my partners and I, we sort of So I started one company called The Fourth Law, and its goal was and is to Make, massively scalable on-drone autonomy. And then In parallel with that together with my, Petcube co-founders, partners, and friends, we started another company called Odd Systems Which, was focused on making thermal cameras. Cameras, thermal cameras are seeing thermal radiation and are used to see at night. And we’re now sort of those companies are getting closer and closer together and we’re probably going to merge them. And this group of companies is currently the leading, team in on-drone AI and thermal imaging on the Ukrainian battlefield, and Likely one of the leading, if not the leading in the world. So We have these, like, three sort of business units, which are cameras, drone autonomy, and drones. So the cameras and drone autonomy sell daytime and nighttime cameras and different types of drone autonomous modules to other drone manufacturers, over 200 drone manufacturers in Ukraine. And then the UAV, business unit sells the drones themselves to the armed forces of Ukraine, Ukrainian government. And there are different types of drones. Those are sort of front strike, as we call them, so those are sort of FPV strike drones and the bombers, and then interceptors. And there are different kinds of interceptors. We do Shahed interceptors and we do ISR interceptors. We don’t do the deep strike-
FPV Drones, Interceptors, and Battery-Powered WarfareNoah [00:16:32]: What’s an ISR interceptor?
Yaroslav [00:16:33]: ISR is stands for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and those are basically drones which are which, Russians are using to watch over positions and then communicate where, the targets are coming.
Noah [00:16:48]: It’s a reconnaissance.
Yaroslav [00:16:48]: That’s, the ISR is sort of a classical term for a for a reconnaissance drone.
Noah [00:16:53]: Are all of these battery-powered drones that you just described? ‘Cause I know that the sort of deep strike drones still have, like Some sort of
Yaroslav [00:17:01]: Internal combustion engine?
Noah [00:17:02]: Internal combustion engine. Are all the things you’re talking about battery-powered?
Yaroslav [00:17:06]: What we’re working on is all battery-powered, right? We don’t do the deep strikes, right? And then in terms of autonomy-
Noah [00:17:12]: You can catch a Shahed with a battery-powered thing. It’s not Fast to catch.
Yaroslav [00:17:17]: No, absolutely. Look, Shahed interceptor, like ours, it’s called Zero, it goes up to 326 kilometers per hour.
Noah [00:17:26]: For reference, how fast is a Shahed?
Yaroslav [00:17:28]: Eight, like, in internal phase it could be 280, but in cruise phase it’s, like, 220-ish.
Yaroslav [00:17:36]: Yeah. And sorry, I’m not like you can convert that into miles if you’re interested.
Noah [00:17:41]: No, that’s fine.
Noah [00:17:41]: Multiply by two thirds or point six or something.
Yaroslav [00:17:44]: That’s easy. Yeah, I was saying that for autonomy modules, right, we, -We make systems, autonomous systems for frontline, for interceptors and some for deep strikes as well, and then different levels of autonomy. So from terminal guidance, which is like lasts 500 meters, give or take, to autonomous bombing, to autonomous target detection, to autonomous navigation and all of that across day and night, different terrains, different time of the year, different platforms like quadcopters and fixed wing, and maybe some other platforms. So it’s quite a wide variety of products. We also have like our own simulation. We have our own training school for the war fighters. And we’re about to start construction of two, semiconductor plants to make, sensors for thermal cameras. So that’s super exciting for me as a computer science guy is Doing semiconductors. Super cool.
Noah [00:18:49]: Like in terms of kind of core drone technologies, you basically are one is an FPV replacement without fiber optics, and the other is
Yaroslav [00:18:59]: You
Noah [00:18:59]: Signal tracking with interceptors
Yaroslav [00:19:00]: With or without fiber optics. Fiber optics Is just like, sort of a communication module.
Yaroslav [00:19:05]: You can, you can use classical analog, video link and radio link. Those would be two separate radios. You can do digital, or you can do fiber optic, and then fiber optic Has its own advantages but also adds weight and decreases, the distance and decreases, how fast you can, sort of turn and With a drone. Yeah.
Noah [00:19:33]: Do you need AI for fiber optic drones?
Yaroslav [00:19:36]: Like you can use AI for fiber optic drones. AI replaces a human, right? Fiber optic is making your communication link more resilient. So those are slightly different goals. Like if you want, you can have, AI controlling hundreds of fiber optic drones instead of having 100 operators for each.
Fiber Optics, Radio Horizons, and Terminal GuidanceNoah [00:20:03]: I guess I thought that the key reason that people moved to fiber optic drones was for like electronic, countermeasures. Or I guess to counter those.
Yaroslav [0