An EW 'dome' over Kyiv: 'Flash' explains how mesh-controlled Shaheds were jammed

What ‘Flash’ said

Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, a freelance adviser to the president, wrote on Facebook on 2 November about an operation to protect Kyiv with electronic warfare (EW) against remotely controlled jet-powered Shahed drones.

“In parallel with the war on the front lines there is now a so-called ‘war of cities’. And the ‘war of cities’ also has its important special operations,” he wrote.

How Shaheds are controlled

According to Beskrestnov, one of the technologies that lets the enemy search for targets and steer Shaheds remotely is mesh radio communication. A Russian operator controls the drone from Russian territory via a radio modem installed on board. So a “dome” had to be built over Kyiv to disrupt that radio link.

Scale of the work

“The tasks were large-scale and ambitious: to do a huge amount of work across the whole city in a few weeks,” he said. All major EW manufacturers were involved, producing and installing equipment around the clock. The General Staff, the Defence Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the National Security and Defence Council, the President’s Office and other units of the armed forces worked on the operation.

He said it involved “many hundreds of locations” for antennas and equipment across the city. The operation, Beskrestnov claims, forced the enemy “to pause, upgrade the Shaheds and look for other solutions”. The dome’s effectiveness cannot be independently assessed: no figures were given.

Context

Earlier Beskrestnov reported that Russian forces are increasing the number of satellite EW systems that interfere with Starlink. The battle on the airwaves — jamming, frequency changes, new communication channels — has become a separate front in the drone war.

What it means for Kyiv residents

EW is only one layer of protection and does not replace air defence or shelters. Air raid alerts should still be taken seriously: by Flash’s own account, the enemy is looking for new solutions.