Ukrainian troops are discovering superior antennas with stronger anti-jamming options on Russian decoy drones, an indication that the Kremlin is overcoming a scarcity of the important thing part.
Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a distinguished Ukrainian drone analyst, posted photographs to social media on Wednesday of a downed delta-wing Gerbera drone and a 12-element Managed Reception Sample Antenna.
“Just lately, 12-element Kometa antennas have begun to look on the Gerberas,” wrote Beskrestnov, who’s the Ukrainian protection minister’s advisor on battle drone tech.
“For me, it is a signal that the plant that produces Kometa has elevated its manufacturing capability. A 12 months in the past, there weren’t sufficient Kometas even for KABs,” he added, referring to Russian precision glide bombs. “There was a three-to-five-month queue on the plant.”
Antennas with extra components are typically extra proof against digital warfare, considered one of Ukraine’s foremost methods to disrupt or take down incoming drones. Extra fundamental variations of the Kometa, Russia’s household of anti-jamming antennas, have four- or eight-element arrays.
{That a} Russian Gerbera could be outfitted with a 12-element antenna is important. Moscow usually makes use of Gerberas as decoys to soak up Ukrainian air protection munitions searching down the Geran-2, Russia’s domestically produced analog of the Iranian Shahed-136 long-range assault drone.
Usually made of froth or plywood, the Gerbera is extra expendable than the Geran-2, which has an estimated value of between $35,000 and $80,000 every. Gerberas price about $10,000 every to make, Ukrainian officers estimated in 2024.
Although Russia has, extra not too long ago, been seen equipping Gerberas with small warheads or utilizing them as scouting instruments, the propeller-driven drones are usually thought-about distractions or low-priority targets.
Beskrestnov wrote that Russia has historically saved closely on prices for the Gerbera, initially launching them with out jamming safety in any respect.
It later started becoming cheaper, Iranian four-element antennas to the drones, he added.
Russia generally equips its assault drones with much more superior, 16-element antennas — together with some of Chinese make — however Beskrestnov mentioned on Wednesday that these have been nonetheless being reserved for “vital merchandise.”
Earlier this month, Kyiv mentioned it used its homegrown Flamingo missiles to strike a manufacturing facility for anti-jamming antennas, the VNIIR-Progress complicated within the Russian metropolis of Cheboksary, about 600 miles from the Ukrainian border.
The plant has repeatedly come below assault from long-range Ukrainian drones up to now 12 months, with not less than 4 separate reported strikes in 2024. The extent of any lasting harm to the ability, nonetheless, is unclear.
