UN Secretary-General António Guterres and International Committee of the Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric issued a joint statement on August 25, warning that the world is “dangerously close” to crossing a “moral red line” — the autonomous targeting of humans by machines. They called on states to urgently begin negotiations on a legally binding treaty that would establish clear prohibitions and restrictions on autonomous weapons systems.
The autonomous weapons systems discussed by the officials are capable of independently selecting a target and applying force against it without human intervention. Although no confirmed case of combat use of fully autonomous weapons has yet occurred, the UN has stated that fully autonomous AI-powered drones have been used in conflicts. A particular concern is the ability — or rather, inability — of such systems to distinguish combatants from civilians in a combat zone. Also illustrative was an incident cited in the context of the appeal: in July 2026, a Red Cross rescue team in Ukraine narrowly escaped an FPV drone strike in the Zaporizhzhia region.
The statement also calls for a ban on unpredictable autonomous weapons — systems whose use of force an operator cannot anticipate or foresee — as well as autonomous anti-personnel weapons.
Russia and the United States oppose new legally binding instruments. They are joined by the United Kingdom, Australia, Belarus, Estonia, India, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Poland, and South Korea. At the same time, 127 states, primarily from Africa and Latin America, support a ban.
Next week in Geneva, the next round of discussions by the CCW Group of Governmental Experts on lethal autonomous weapons systems will begin. These negotiations adopt decisions by consensus only, meaning any vote against will halt consideration of the issue.
Ukrainian developers are also testing drones with onboard AI capable of locking onto a designated target and autonomously executing the terminal phase of an attack in the event of data-link suppression. At the same time, Ukraine has not officially declared the use of systems capable of independently selecting and engaging targets without human involvement. The country participates in UN discussions on lethal autonomous weapons systems within the CCW framework, supports resolutions preserving the human role in the use of force, and prohibits the use of autonomous engagement decisions at the final stage of target interception.