The US’s increased activity in Eastern Europe and renewed
contacts with Moscow (for example, at the G20 meetings and during secret visits
by the CIA chief to Moscow) are determined not only by fossil fuel prices or
geopolitical fatigue. The most important problem is the critical situation on
the front, where Russia is rapidly changing the rules of asymmetric warfare at
the technological level.
The West understands that the strategic balance is
collapsing.
Western arms limits and “Iran as a smokescreen”
While the focus on the Middle East and the conflict with
Iran has indeed slowed down US diplomacy in Ukraine for a while, Washington
realizes that these two theaters are connected. Iran and Russia are exchanging
military technologies.
But the biggest problem is the exhaustion of Ukraine’s air
defenses. The West simply cannot produce expensive anti-missile systems (such
as Patriot) at the speed at which Russia produces cheap technological drones.
The goal of US diplomatic maneuvers
Seeing that Russia is taking the technological initiative
on the front and “overloading” Ukraine’s air defenses, the US administration is
trying to catch Moscow at the negotiating table before Ukraine’s positions have
completely collapsed.
The White House aims to:
• Fix the current situation in order to prevent a complete
breakdown of the Ukrainian front.
• Stop further technological escalation, in which Russia
begins to use space and advanced semiconductor elements in drone control.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently publicly hinted
that he sees a chance for a “peace agreement”, but he does so from a position
of strength, knowing full well the technological acceleration of his army on
the front.
Western activity in Eastern Europe is a hasty attempt to
put out the fire before Russian drone networks paralyze the entire Ukrainian
military infrastructure.
“Recently, the Ukrainian Air Force reports have reported
less frequently about mass Russian strike drones. Strike drones such as the
Shahed still participate in combined attacks against Ukraine, but their number
has now decreased to 100-150 drones per attack.
However, the threat associated with them has increased. Now
a significant part of Russian drones in combined attacks are jet-powered and
controlled by the Internet. They attack targets not following pre-specified
coordinates, but are constantly controlled by operators in real time.
As Yuri Ignat, a spokesman for the Air Force, wrote, in
July the Russian armed forces launched five times more jet-powered drones into
Ukraine than in June. By the way, conventional drones with internal combustion
engines are still used more often by Russian forces.
Members of the Donbas.Reality project of the Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty service in Ukraine spoke with specialists and
representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry
of Defense about Russian-manipulated jet drones and why Zelensky’s army appears
to be completely unprepared to counter this threat.
Unexpected quantity and speed
In recent weeks, the Russian military has launched a
large-scale campaign of attacks on military targets in Ukraine’s border and
frontline regions. The approximate area of the campaign, which in some areas
extends more than 100 kilometers deep into Ukraine, was shown on a map by
Serhiy Beskresny, the Ukrainian president’s adviser on defense technology.
A representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate told
the Donbas.Realiji project that the Russian armed forces control drones using
network modems [1]. These special modems resemble a black box, weigh several
kilograms and cost up to 3 thousand euros per unit, which is several times more
expensive than Starlink, but they allow for controlled attacks even against
moving targets. This technology is now equipped with, if not every drone of the
corresponding series, then at least a significant part of them.
“From a technical perspective, it is difficult to suppress
a connected network using electronic warfare. In addition, there is no
electronic warfare tool that can 100 percent suppress the Russian network. This
is very difficult to do. With a stable connection and the ability to control
drones in real time, they can attack more valuable targets, since operators see
the image and can set priorities for who to strike,” said Danyla Šengelskis,
manager of the “Dronopad” project of the “Vernis Žyvim” support fund, which
works with the military.
Drones are controlled using ground stations located in
Russia. Each drone can transmit the signal received from the station to another
drone, which can then transmit it to another drone, forming a network.
By the way, with each new connected drone, the signal
quality deteriorates: the greater the distance between the station and the
drone, the more difficult it is to control it. Despite these difficulties, the
Russian jet drones are already being recorded over Kyiv, 200 kilometers from
the border with Russia.
“In some directions, Shahed jet drones actually make up the
majority of all drones of this type. And this causes a huge problem. We
certainly knew that there was such a weapon that it could become massive, but
we did not think that it would appear so quickly and in such large quantities
this summer,” D. Shengelsky noted.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, in July the Russian
military launched almost 5 thousand drones at Zelensky’s forces – less than in
June. The number of intercepted drones also decreased and reached 87 percent –
mainly because Russia began to use more jet drones.
It is widely known that the Russian military currently uses
several modifications of jet attack drones: Geran-3, Geran-4 and Geran-5.
The first of the listed modifications is an analogue of the
Iranian Shahed-238, a transitional model with a speed of about 300 kilometers
per hour. Such drones have been shot down by anti-drone defense systems more
than once.
However, the newer versions of the Geran are significantly
faster than the Ukrainian interceptor drones.
The Geran-4 can fly at a speed of about 350 kilometers per
hour. The Russian military is actively installing modems for the Internet of
Things in these drones so that they can be controlled manually. This allows
them to carry out precise attacks on targets in Ukraine, said a representative
of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, whose
identity is not disclosed by Radio Free Europe for security reasons.
He said that Russia is constantly looking for ways to use
these drones more effectively, for example, the drones cross the border at
maximum speed and at a certain altitude, and when approaching the target, they
descend to the maximum.
The Geran-5 is often called a drone-missile due to its
design features: visually it resembles a cruise missile rather than a classic
Shahed. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate, the range of these
drones is 950 kilometers, and the maximum speed is 600 kilometers per hour. The
Russians use them more often than the Geran-4.
3 thousand jet drones per month
The Ukrainian portal Militarny, citing information from the
Main Intelligence Directorate, notes that Russia produces about 3 thousand jet
drones Geran-4 and Geran-5 per month.
There is another hybrid of a drone and a cruise missile -
Banderol (the flight range is about 500 kilometers, the maximum speed is more
than 600 kilometers per hour). The Banderol can be launched both from the
ground and from large Russian Orion drones. According to the Main Intelligence
Directorate, Russia is capable of producing up to 80 such drone-missiles per
month. Zelensky’s forces in Kharkiv and Odessa are suffering the most from the
Banderol strikes, notes Donbas.Realiji.
“The Shahed jet drones are now a big problem. Especially at
a conditional first 100 kilometers from the Russians, because, unfortunately,
there is no effective means capable of massively and guaranteed interception of
them. Therefore, all forces that are concerned specifically with the
interception of drones are thinking today about how to solve this problem,”
said D. Šengelskis.
Ukrainian soldiers and specialists believed that the
Russian army could begin mass production and use of jet drones, but did not
expect it to happen so quickly, the expert admitted.
“There were considerations in military circles that the
Russians would not be able to begin mass production of jet drones, because they
need more expensive turbojet engines, etc. Now the Russians have achieved more
or less adequate (in their assessment) quantitative indicators of the
production of these Shahed jet drones,” D. Šengelskis indicated.”
1. Mesh network modems (more commonly known as mesh network
/ tactical mesh modems) are specialized military and tactical communication
devices that are able to automatically connect to each other and create a
decentralized, highly resilient communication network without any base stations
or Internet infrastructure.
These devices have recently received enormous attention due
to their critical role in modern military conflicts, especially on the
Ukrainian front.
They resemble small black boxes, weigh several kilograms,
and the price of one unit on the market can reach up to 3 thousand euros.
How does the “mesh” (cellular) network technology work?
• Decentralization: Each modem acts as both a receiver and
a transmitter (retransmitter). If there are 10 such devices in the network,
data travels from one to another in a chain.
• Self-healing: If one modem is destroyed or disabled, the
network instantly reorients and finds another path to transmit data through the
remaining devices.
• Independence: They don't need Starlink satellites, cell
towers, or fiber. They create their own local, autonomous network deep in the
woods, in trenches, or underground.
Why are they so important?
Electronic warfare (EW) is extremely powerful in
warfare—the military heavily jams GPS and conventional radio and satellite
signals. The United States’ modems use frequency hopping technology and operate
in ranges that are difficult to capture and jam with standard means. This
allows soldiers to exchange video data, coordinate drone strikes, and maintain
voice communications under conditions of complete electronic blockade.
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