Low-Tech Balloons Make Comeback High Above Battlefields Worldwide

“A military technology from the French Revolution is finding new life on the modern AI-powered battlefield.

 

From the events in Ukraine to the Pacific Ocean, balloons are making a comeback, boosted by high-tech innovations in sensors, autonomy and materials.

 

The low-cost, floating systems can spy, link communications networks and transport payloads. They barely show up on radar and soar high above electronic-warfare transmissions that fry other airborne devices.

 

They also carry weapons, including one-way attack drones, thousands of miles to hit faraway targets, causing destruction and sowing fear far from the front lines.

 

Militaries large and small are paying attention. High-altitude balloons are slated to be part of U.S. Army exercises in Nevada and across Europe in April, and the service is preparing to test swarms of balloons in the Pacific late this year. European allies are testing balloons for a variety of military roles.

 

"Anything you can do off an airplane, you can do off a balloon -- and most countries aren't looking for it," said Peter Phillips, a former U.S. Senior Special Operations Officer who worked with balloons.

 

Meanwhile, Russia and its allies have used balloons.

 

But no country has pushed the balloon frontier further than Ukraine, which is using them to execute audacious strikes deep inside Russia, as well as for reconnaissance and transportation, and as decoys. Kyiv, lacking funding and access to enough sophisticated weapons, has turned to balloons as an inexpensive fallback option that comes with an asymmetric advantage in the form of local wind patterns.

 

"It's necessary, as we would never have enough drones and deep-strike missiles," said Iurii Vysoven, who co-founded Kyiv-based balloon startup Aerobavovna. "We need this to succeed."

 

Ukraine began using balloons soon after 2022 to drop bombs or grenades and exhaust Russian defenses by carrying payloads designed to resemble combat aircraft on radar, according to people familiar with the missions. In 2024, Ukraine started using balloons -- often from American suppliers -- as delivery systems for small kamikaze weapons that pilot themselves to a precise target.

 

The pairing offered a way to strike deep into Russian territory -- targeting the country's oil fields and refineries, shipping terminals and railways -- and weaken its economy, people familiar with the matter said.

 

"This is a very important part of Ukraine's overall effort to bring Russia to the negotiating table on much more reasonable terms," said Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an expert on the Russian military.

 

The Ukrainian Security Service, or SBU, the country's primary intelligence agency, declined to comment. The General Staff of the Armed Forces, the country's central military command, didn't respond to a request to comment.

 

Ukraine forces last year used balloons in attacks on Russian oil refineries, and on Moscow and Ryazan, to the southeast of the capital, according to Russian media reports and people familiar with the matter. Balloons also were used to deliver attack drones to Moscow in December, in an operation that forced a temporary closure of major airports, the people said.

 

"You can do this all day until you exhaust their air defenses because balloons are cheap," said Robert Zubrin, a 73-year-old aerospace engineer who founded Pegasus Aerospace, a Colorado-based startup that makes military balloons.

 

As every child knows, balloons are at the mercy of the wind. In Ukraine, prevailing winds blow east, meaning balloons naturally float toward Russia. "The wind is a series of one-way streets," said Kyle Guerre, a U.S. Army veteran who is researching balloon navigation technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

Operators say that the combination of AI with more accurate weather prediction data has made it easier to hit distant targets with increasing precision. The balloons rise and descend using vents or propellers to find the right currents.

 

Andrew Evans, director of strategy and transformation for the U.S. Army's intelligence unit, pointed out that it might cost the enemy millions of dollars to shoot down a balloon that costs a few hundred. The service has spent more than $10 million over the past three years on balloons, and has required that soldiers begin using them.

 

"We are certainly looking at what is happening in Ukraine and certainly taking those lessons," Evans said.

 

President Trump's spending bill last year included $50 million for the development and procurement of high-altitude military balloons. Among the uses envisioned for them are transporting weapons and supplies across the Pacific and providing surveillance in a hypothetical conflict with China.

 

The Army will test strike capabilities from balloons during an exercise in the Pacific this March, working with Special Operations Command, Army Chief Technology Officer Alex Miller said.

 

Encouraged by a successful experiment last year flying balloons from hundreds of miles inland out over the Atlantic, where they provided intelligence and communications for a maritime force, the Army is building toward launching as many as 100 balloons that coordinate with each other and other weapons systems.

 

"All of this is about extending range," Miller said.” [1]

 

1. World News: Low-Tech Balloons Make Comeback High Above Battlefields Worldwide. Somerville, Heather; Michaels, Daniel.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 17 Feb 2026: A6.