Ukraine Destroys Shahed Drone Relay Stations in Belarus, Cutting Moscow’s Eyes Over Kyiv

The Shahed-136’s most dangerous feature was never its warhead. It was the mesh network quietly stitching dozens of drones together mid-flight, turning each surviving drone into a signal repeater for every other. Ukrainian signals intelligence just severed that network at its root — by destroying the relay stations Russia had been running off Belarusian soil.

• The Development: Ukraine has destroyed multiple Shahed drone mesh-network relay stations located on Belarusian territory, according to Ukrainian Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov and Ministry of Defense advisor Serhiy “Flash” Beskrestnov, who both confirmed the operation on February 27, 2026.
• The “So What?”: The destroyed stations served as the communications bridge between Russian operators and the airborne Shahed swarm over northern and central Ukraine, including Kyiv. Without these fixed ground anchors, the northern mesh network loses its uplink to Russian command.
• The Impact: Fedorov confirmed Ukraine “managed to eliminate the Mesh network used by the Shaheds in the north, which had a positive impact on the defense capabilities of Kyiv and the central part of Ukraine.”
• The Source: Reporting confirmed by UNITED24 Media, citing direct statements from Fedorov and Beskrestnov via Facebook.

How the Shahed Mesh Network Actually Works

The Shahed-136 mesh network is not a simple point-to-point radio link between drone and ground controller. Each drone carries a radio modem that functions as both a relay and a signal amplifier, connecting to every other Shahed in the air simultaneously. Shoot down three drones in a swarm of ten, and the remaining seven automatically reroute the signal through the survivors — the network stays live.

Beskrestnov laid out the architecture clearly in statements reported by UNITED24 Media: “Under such a scheme, all Shaheds in the air are connected by radio to each other. As a result, several Shaheds can be shot down, and the connection will not be interrupted; it will simply pass through other Shaheds.”

The weak point in this system is not the airborne mesh itself. It is the ground-based entry nodes that bridge the mesh back to Russian operators. These nodes are fixed infrastructure: typically mounted on towers 70 to 90 meters tall, positioned near Ukraine’s borders, and fitted with high-powered directional antennas. They are large, static, and emit detectable radio signals. That made them a tractable target for Ukrainian signals intelligence. According to UNITED24 Media, the stations also previously enabled Russian forces to conduct reconnaissance over Kyiv — not just coordinate strikes.

This design philosophy mirrors what we covered when Iran’s drone blueprint gave Russia a mass-production weapon it could not have developed on its own. The Shahed architecture is built for redundancy and volume, not stealth.

Belarus Was Running Stations Ukraine Didn’t Expect

Russian relay infrastructure operating from Russian territory and occupied Ukrainian land was anticipated. Beskrestnov said the Belarusian element was a genuine surprise: “The fact that such points operated from the territory of Russia and the occupied territories surprised no one, but the operation of such points from the territory of Belarus turned out to be a surprise.”

Several relay stations were found inside Belarus, actively servicing Shahed swarms across multiple regions of Ukraine. That geographic reach matters. Belarusian territory was functioning as a forward communications platform for strikes on northern and central Ukraine, including Kyiv.

Ukrainian signals intelligence located these stations by continuously monitoring the radio emissions from the tower-mounted antennas. The signals gave away precise coordinates. Ukraine then eliminated them, though neither Fedorov nor Beskrestnov specified the method — which could range from a remote strike to a sabotage operation conducted inside Belarus, a distinction with significant geopolitical weight.

This operation fits the broader pattern of Ukraine systematically dismantling Russia’s drone control infrastructure. Earlier this year, SpaceX’s Starlink whitelist went live and severed Russian frontline drone control links that had been piggybacking on unauthorized terminals. That was a connectivity attack from the top down. This one came from the ground up.

Russia’s Shahed Production Keeps Climbing

Destroying relay stations matters, but it does not change Russia’s production math. Ukraine’s Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi warned in January that Russia was already producing 404 Shaheds per day, with a stated goal of reaching 1,000 per day. At that scale, Russia can absorb the loss of a communications node and rebuild.

The Belarusian relay stations were part of an expanding Russian military presence in that country. Satellite imagery has previously shown Russia building out air defense and electronic warfare networks around the Krychaw military airfield in Belarus — the probable deployment zone for the Oreshnik ballistic missile system. Belarus is increasingly integrated into Russian strike operations, not just as a staging area but as active communications infrastructure.

Ukraine has been countering on multiple fronts. The Sunray laser system is burning drones out of the sky at a fraction of Western system costs. Ukraine’s pay-per-kill drone program is pushing intercept numbers up. And now signals intelligence is reaching across borders to kill the radio infrastructure that makes coordinated Shahed swarms possible.

The Belarusian relay station operation also follows the same logic that drove Ukraine to strike the Shahed factory in Yelabuga last June: target the system, not just the individual drones.

DroneXL’s Take

What Beskrestnov described is a wartime SIGINT operation that most people picture as something out of a Cold War spy novel: triangulating radio tower locations from signal emissions, then destroying fixed infrastructure across an international border. Ukraine pulled this off inside Belarus. Belarus, apparently, could not prevent it.

One important scope note: Fedorov specifically said Ukraine eliminated “the Mesh network used by the Shaheds in the north.” That is a significant victory, but it is not the whole network. Other regional mesh networks may still be operational. The article’s headline is accurate, but readers should understand the northern network was the specific target here.

On Belarus: running 70-to-90-meter antenna towers to relay drone strikes on Ukrainian cities is active participation in this war. Whether Lukashenko personally directed the operation or Russian personnel built and managed these stations on Belarusian soil without his full involvement remains publicly unconfirmed. Either way, Ukraine treating those towers as legitimate military targets is operationally sound and legally defensible under the laws of armed conflict.

The deeper story is the consistency of Ukraine’s approach. Don’t just shoot down the drones. Dismantle the systems that make the drones effective. Starlink terminal enforcement, the Yelabuga factory strike, and now the mesh network relay stations — each layer Ukraine peels back forces Russia to rebuild, reroute, or find a workaround. Every workaround costs time and money.

My expectation: Russia rebuilds these relay nodes within 60 to 90 days, probably routing them deeper into Belarusian territory or hardening them against detection. Ukraine’s signals intelligence will adapt. This is the real drone war — not the dramatic intercept footage, but the slow, technical grinding-down of an adversary’s command infrastructure, tower by tower.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.