PDB Afternoon Bulletin | August 25th, 2026: Russia Just Crossed a Terrifying AI Threshold & Washington Reopens Embassies

this episode is brought to you by Nordstrom for 125 years Nordstrom has been part of your story the stylist who found the perfect outfit for your big interview the first pair of walking shoes for your one-year-old the tomato soup you shared with your sister at the cafe these are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom big or small we're here for all of it celebrating 125 years with new moments still add discover it all in Nordstrom stores and at nordstrom.com it's Tuesday the 25th of August welcome to the PDB afternoon bulletin okay fine it's more like the early evening bulletin today I'm Mike Baker your eyes and ears on the world stage all right let's get briefed first up Russia crosses a dangerous new threshold in Ukraine deploying an AI guided drone that made the final targeting decision in an attack that killed three civilians in other words removing the human from the decision about whether to kill humans later in the show despite the ongoing hostilities between the United States and Iran Washington prepares to return diplomats to embassies evacuated from the region during the war suggesting perhaps that the administration of the United States and Iran will be able to return to power after the war is over and Russia will be able to return to power and the Russian Federation does not expect full-scale fighting anytime soon but first today's afternoon spotlight Russia is now testing a new generation of attack drones in Ukraine that can identify and strike targets without a human operator making the final decision Ukrainian investigators say one of those drones killed three civilians in Zaporizhia last month after its onboard artificial intelligence system selected a gas station as a target and the Ukrainian authorities say it was an inexpensive commercially available device made by the American technology company NVIDIA the attack happened on July 6th when a group of roughly six Russian drones approached the city one of them was directed toward a gas station where Ukrainian officials believe it had been trained to recognize and attack propane tanks the drone crashed into a wall before reaching the tanks and exploded killing three people among the victims was a 19 year old university student who had taken shelter near an apartment building after hearing explosions according to Ukrainian investigators human operators had selected the general destination and sent the drone toward the gas station but once it reached the area the drones onboard computer took over and selected the exact target on its own and that distinction is what makes this story so important and troubling both Russia and Ukraine already used drones with artificial intelligence during the final stage of an attack a human operator selects a target and then the AI guides the drone through the final few hundred yards that allows the weapon to continue tracking its target even if electronic warfare cuts the connection with the pilot but the drones Russia tested in Zaporizhia reportedly removed the human operator from that final decision the system was trained using thousands of images so it could recognize certain categories of objects including propane tanks and decide what to strike after reaching the target area Ukrainian officials say the recovered drones did not have antennas and were not emitting radio signals that meant there was no pilot controlling them remotely and no communications link for Ukrainian forces to jam investigators also recovered the computer that appears to have guided the weapon it was an NVIDIA Jetson Orin a small AI module designed for civilian robotics and machine vision applications the device was not encrypted allowing Ukrainian investigators to examine the information stored inside they say they found terrain images used to guide the drone along with coding that revealed the kind of objects the system had been trained to recognize NVIDIA confirmed that photographs of the recovered hardware showed one of its Jetson Orin computers the company says the devices are consumer grade products sold to students and developers and startups and were never designed for military use NVIDIA does not sell them in Russia but the computers are widely available through resellers and cost only a few hundred dollars once they enter the secondary market NVIDIA says it has almost no ability to track where they ultimately end up the circuit board carrying the NVIDIA chip was marked quote made in China oh although it remains unclear how Russia obtained the device essentially Russia did not need to develop a classified military computer or manufacture an advanced chip from scratch it appears to have taken an inexpensive civilian product combined it with targeting software and installed it inside a mass produced attack drone Ukraine's defense intelligence agency says a similar NVIDIA computer was recently found inside a new Russian missile known as the s71m monochrome investigators believe that system may also be using AI for guidance this technology could make Russian drones much harder to stop traditional electronic warfare works by interrupting the signal between a drone and its pilot but if the drone has no pilot and no signal well there's nothing to interrupt it also allows Russia to launch more weapons without requiring a trained operator for every drone once the system improves Russia could send large groups of autonomous weapons into an area and instruct them to search independently for fuel tanks or military vehicles artillery systems or other predetermined targets and Russia is not alone in developing this capability Ukraine has also tested fully autonomous drones against Russian fuel storage sites and military equipment in occupied Crimea Ukrainian officials say those operations did not kill civilians but the attack in zaparizia may be the first documented case in which a Russian drone using fully autonomous targeting caused civilian deaths the larger concern is that neither Russia nor Ukraine will be the last country to use these systems the components are inexpensive the software will continue improving and the lessons being learned in Ukraine will spread for years governments and human rights organizations have debated whether machines should be allowed to make lethal targeting decisions without human approval it doesn't seem like you'd need to debate something like that but that debate regardless may now be falling behind the technology all right coming up next Washington prepares to send diplomats back to embassies across the Middle East a possible indication that the U.S administration believes another round of full-scale war with Iran is unlikely I'll be right back hey Mike Baker here with a pro tip for everybody out there who loves delicious food come on there's a lot of you out there have you heard of Gold Belly now Gold Belly ships America's most iconic foods from legendary restaurants straight to your door anywhere in the U.S seriously couldn't be easier 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Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's, home of the save. Welcome back to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. The Trump administration appears increasingly confident that a full-scale war with Iran is not about to resume. And the clearest sign of that may not be anything that President Trump has said. It's what the State Department is preparing to do on the ground. A new report from the New York Times reveals that American diplomats could begin returning to embassies across the Middle East as soon as this week, reversing some of the emergency measures put in place before and during the war with Iran. The Times obtained an internal State Department document outlining the plans, which were also described by three U.S. officials to the outlet on condition of anonymity. Well, they probably requested anonymity because they weren't supposed to open their yaps. In late February. Just one day before the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran, non-essential embassy workers in Jerusalem and their families were given the option to leave Israel at government expense. It wasn't long after the opening strikes of Operation Epic Fury that the Iranian regime retaliated. As the conflict spread, Iran and its regional proxies targeted American diplomatic outposts in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and elsewhere with explosive drones and rockets. The threat became serious enough that the State Department ordered evacuations. And in some countries, American diplomats were told to work from home rather than inside embassy compounds. Now, that posture is beginning to change. Under the new plan revealed in the State Department document, the first diplomats to return will be sent back to the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon. Eventually, embassies in Israel, Jordan and Oman are expected to return to full staffing or near full staffing. But Washington isn't giving the region an all-clear just yet. The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon is expected to return to full staffing or near full staffing. Embassies in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Lebanon will initially be capped at 85% staffing levels. Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain will remain lower at 75%. Restrictions on bringing family members will also remain in place across the six Gulf countries and Lebanon. Washington appears increasingly comfortable putting American diplomats back on the ground, while still treating Iran and the regional security environment as a serious threat. In a statement separate from the internal document, the State Department says, And the timing makes that assessment particularly notable. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration, Dan Shapiro, put it this way, quote, returning personnel to missions that were partly evacuated suggests that the administration believes the war is winding down. End quote. Now, that doesn't mean another confrontation is impossible, of course. And the continued staffing and family restrictions make it clear that Washington isn't treating the danger from Iran as gone. At least, not just yet. And that, my friends, is the PDB Afternoon Bulletin for Tuesday, the 25th of August. If you have any questions or comments, and I hope you do, just reach out to me at pdb at thefirsttv.com. And to listen to the show ad-free, it is very simple. Just become a premium member. The President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool. Hey, Mike Baker here with an important message for homeowners. Now, one of the most frustrating things about owning a home is that major repairs never happen at a convenience store. You know what I'm talking about, right? Your water heater quits, an electrical issue pops up, or your A.C. goes down during the hottest week of the summer, right? 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