Advisor to the Minister of Defense, electronic warfare expert Sergei «Flash» Beskrestnov stated that repeaters in Belarus may continue to be used from time to time to guide drones to targets in Ukraine.
Advisor to the Minister of Defense, electronic warfare expert Sergei «Flash» Beskrestnov stated that repeaters in Belarus may continue to be used from time to time to guide drones to targets in Ukraine.
According to Flash, today at 7:11 a.m., a Shahed guided missile attacked a gas station in Malyn, Zhytomyr region. According to Ukrainian radar data, the drone flew along the border with Belarus, reached Korosten right above the highway, then turned and flew over the railway to Malyn, where it attacked the gas station. Such behavior, according to the advisor, is typical for manual control of a UAV using a camera.
The distance from the point of attack to the Russian border is 260 kilometers — this, according to Flash, is too far for a direct radio channel. There were no other Shaheds in the air at that time that could have acted as a repeater. The final conclusions regarding the reasons for such a trajectory will be made by the relevant services and units after a detailed study of the situation.
According to Flesch, it is critical for the enemy to attack the western part of Ukraine with online-controlled Shaheds, but without repeaters in Belarus, this is impossible. He noted that he cannot say for sure whether Alexander Lukashenko will withstand pressure to turn the repeaters back on, and does not rule out that the equipment could be installed without the knowledge of the Belarusian authorities — according to him, this can be done quickly and easily, so Minsk should monitor the situation more closely.
As we will recall, at the end of June, Volodymyr Zelensky reported that Belarus had turned off the network of repeaters that Russia used to guide long-range drones to targets in Ukraine — this happened after the ultimatum that the president put forward to Lukashenko. Flash then explained that repeaters are installed on mobile operator towers or television towers 45–70 meters high, where an Internet-connected receiver with an antenna directed at Ukraine is installed. According to him, turning off the repeaters does not stop drone attacks as such, but deprives the occupiers of the ability to online control and aerial reconnaissance — without this, the «Shaheeds» will switch to standard attacks using GPS coordinates. At the same time, according to the adviser, it is very simple to restore the operation of such a network: just climb the tower, install the antenna and connect the equipment.
