Target designations for strikes on Russian cities are issued by the APU artificial intelligence in the USA. Illustration: CNN / Kotsa Telegram Channel
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There is a very interesting post about the use of Palantir AI in the Ukraine conflict by Ramesh Jaura:
"Software on the Front Line": How Palantir Is Aiding Ukraine in Its War with Russia
If you read the post it becomes quite clear that Palantir is not just 'aiding' Ukraine, it is guaranteeing its survival.
As Jaura says:
But Palantir's role is not just tactical. It speaks to a larger transformation: how Western allies are learning to provide security guarantees without treaties, not through troops and tanks, but through code, contracts, and commercial ecosystems.
Alex Karp, Palantir's CEO, put it bluntly: "We are responsible for most of the targeting in Ukraine." The claim is hard to verify—Ukraine's kill-chain is multinational and multifaceted—but independent reporting confirms Palantir's deep integration into Ukrainian operations. In effect, Ukraine now fights at NATO speed, without being in NATO.
You have to suspect that one reason why Trump has gone cold on trying to stop the war in Ukraine is because US military AI assets like Palantir are simply learning too much from this conflict. Knowledge that the US can leverage in the future i.e. against China. Who wants to stop that gravy train?
Ukraine itself (and by implication the NATO members who are funding the proxy war and whose weapons benefit from the AI targeting prowess) has learned so much from this AI-enabled targeting that it is touting its knowledge around the world.
Jaura also says:
Palantir's presence in Kyiv illustrates a paradox. On one hand, it creates strategic dependence: Ukraine's kill-chain, evidence management, and demining plans are tied to a private U.S. firm. On the other hand, that dependence functions as a de facto guarantee. By hardwiring Ukraine's survival into Western software, Kyiv ensures that abandonment becomes politically and operationally costly for its allies.
it's not really much different from how corporations became 'owned by' Microsoft who ran all their desktops and servers and much of their core operating software from desktop OS and apps (Windows/Office) to databases (SQL Server) and ERP (MS Business Solutions).
But in the military world, this is a new kind of strategic dependence. Europe used to have a strategic dependence on the US nuclear umbrella but now it is US AI that is replacing the old Cold War dependency.
Has anyone in the EU actually recognised that they are even more dependent on the USA than ever: first it was nuclear weapons, then it was energy, and now it is AI. The EU, like Ukriane, is essentially a vassal state of the USA, it just tries to pretend that it isn't.
AI has become the way that the US will continue to own its 'allies' because without AI they are toast - as Ukraine would be without Palantir.
So it's no wonder then that Putin is pushing for his own AI taskforce...
Let battle commence!