Russia is fitting Shaheds with FM transmitters and paying Ukrainians to record them. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, the Ukrainian president’s adviser on technological directions of defense, said that a Shahed with an unexplained antenna has been spotted again, this time over Chernihiv Oblast, and that he is waiting for one to be recovered as a trophy to confirm his theory about what it does.
According to Beskrestnov, Russia uses social media to recruit traitors. A recruit is told to buy a radio receiver and a voice recorder, tune the receiver to a designated empty frequency, such as 85.5 MHz, at a set time, place the recorder next to it in record mode, and send the recording to a specified Telegram account.
Meanwhile, the Shahed carries an FM transmitter continuously broadcasting coded information about its flight. Euromaidan Press cannot independently confirm the scheme. It is Beskrestnov’s interpretation of an antenna he has photographed but not yet examined on a recovered drone.
Flash is mocking method, not danger
“Behind this technologically idiotic operation, there is clearly some GRU colonel over 60 who considers himself a genius and probably even got an award for it. Just imagine — inflating such a spy ‘movement’ for the sake of some crap,” Beskrestnov wrote.
The scorn is aimed at how clumsy the scheme is, not at the idea that Russia would try it. He closed with a warning to anyone tempted.
“For all lovers of easy money, I remind you that a small service can cost life imprisonment,” Beskrestnov wrote.
Antenna fits Russia’s wider Shahed-guidance experimentation
Whatever the specific antenna does, it fits a pattern of Russia constantly re-engineering how its Shaheds navigate and report. Beskrestnov and Ukrainian intelligence have documented one adaptation after another.
Russia has fitted Shaheds with SIM cards to exploit Ukrainian and European mobile networks for guidance, ordering the cards from a Rostelecom subsidiary and having drones switch to neighboring countries’ networks when Ukraine blocks them.
It built a web of Shahed relay towers in Belarus, some on residential rooftops, to extend control over drones striking western Ukraine. It has flown jet-powered Gerans, AI machine-vision variants, and manually piloted low-altitude Shaheds.
Read also
-
Ukrainians think their own security service is calling—it’s Russia recruiting saboteurs
-
Ukrainian regiment that raised flag in Kostiantynivka says it’s aware of reports that its soldiers were captured there
-
“Policy of ethnocide”: Ukraine says Russia has settled 300,000 Russians in occupied Crimea, replacing Ukrainians driven out
About the Author
