Evidence

Multiple outlets (including Ukraine's UNN and the aggregator PoliticalWire, both citing The Atlantic directly, as well as the war-tracking blog Balloon Juice) confirm that The Atlantic published a report saying that early this year Ukrainian officials brought President Zelensky a plan, reportedly codenamed "M&Ms," to use waves of AI-powered/AI-guided drones against Moscow's airports in order to disrupt international flights to and from the Russian capital. These secondary reports quote The Atlantic's own account, which The Atlantic attributes to unnamed sources familiar with the discussions. I could not find any independent corroboration from a second, separate investigative outlet reporting the same information from its own sourcing, nor did I find any response from the Ukrainian government, Zelensky's office, or the Kremlin addressing this specific report. I also could not find any fact-check from Reuters Fact Check, AFP Fact Check, Bellingcat, or EUvsDisinfo assessing this particular claim — it appears to be a recent (roughly August 2026) exclusive report rather than a claim that fact-checkers have yet examined.