Ukraine says it created a city-scale electronic-warfare network over Kyiv to disrupt radio links between Russian operators and Shahed drones equipped for remote control, according to Unmanned Airspace’s report. Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s president on defence technology, described the arrangement as a protective electronic-warfare “cylinder” over the capital.
The reported function was disruption rather than detection or identification. Beskrestnov said Mesh radio communications connected operators in Russia with modems on the drones, allowing operators to control aircraft and search for targets during flight. Equipment was installed at hundreds of locations across Kyiv within a few weeks, with Ukrainian electronic-warfare manufacturers producing and assembling systems for the effort, the report said.
Beskrestnov attributed a subsequent pause in Russia’s use of the remote-control approach to the operation, saying Russian forces upgraded their Shahed drones and sought alternative technical solutions. That remains an attributed Ukrainian claim; the report does not provide measured jamming effectiveness, affected frequencies, geographic coverage, link-loss rates or independent confirmation of the reported change in Russian tactics.
The account fits within a broader layered air-defence effort, but the available evidence does not show that the EW network alone accounted for drone losses. Defence Industry Europe, citing Ukraine’s Defence Ministry and Air Force, reported that October air defence combined aviation, surface-to-air missile units, mobile fire groups, unmanned-systems operators and electronic-warfare systems while Russia varied flight paths and altitudes and used decoys (the report).
The documented distinction is therefore between a claimed RF-control-link countermeasure and overall air-defence results. Ukraine has described the former’s deployment scale and intended effect, but the fetched reports do not establish its operating bands, test conditions or standalone performance against the wider mix of drones and decoys.