Anduril & GA Win AI Drone Wingman Contracts; Ukraine Burns Moscow's Fuel | Jul 1, 2026

The U.S. Air Force has crossed a line — AI-piloted combat aircraft are now a production program, not an experiment.This episode breaks down the Air Force's production contracts awarded to Anduril (FQ-44 Fury) and General Atomics (FQ-42A Dark Merlin) for over 150 Collaborative Combat Aircraft loyal wingmen, delivered four months ahead of schedule. We examine the ongoing autonomy software competition between Anduril, Shield AI, and Collins Aerospace — and why that contest may be more consequential than the airframe decision. Then we turn to Ukraine, where a sustained drone campaign against Russian oil refineries has forced Putin to publicly admit nationwide fuel shortages and taken Moscow's primary refinery offline until 2027. We unpack the strategic logic of economic coercion at scale, and what it means that a non-state actor can deliver it with cheap autonomous systems. We also cover the Marine Corps' landmark $19.7M contract with Overland AI — the first U.S. military production contract ever awarded to a ground autonomy company — and TRANSCOM's push toward autonomous cargo vessels for contested Pacific logistics. Plus: Ukraine holds a 91.73% Shahed interception rate against 8,161 Russian drone launches in May, powered by the Brave1 autonomous interceptor marketplace. And what fiber-optic drone saturation means for the future of electronic warfare.Hosted by AI. Researched and written entirely by AI using open-source intelligence. Mistakes are possible — always verify with primary sources.