MP Fedienko: ‘Shahed’ Drones Over Kyiv Can Be Controlled From Inside the City

The Russians are unlikely to directly control the Shahed drones over Kyiv from Russian territory because of radio communication restrictions. To do this, they could use transmitters closer to the capital or build a mesh network in which some drones act as repeaters for others. MP Oleksandr Fedienko put forward such versions after his own technical calculations.

According to him, recently there has been information that the Russians are allegedly remotely controlling the “Shaheds” from their territory. In particular, strikes on the SBU building, the INCOM business centre, and other objects in Kyiv are associated with this method of guidance.

Fedienko, who worked with wireless systems before entering politics, decided to check how technically feasible such a scheme was.

For the calculations, he used a building in the Shulyavka area as the conditional launch point for the “Shahed,” the drone’s flight altitude, and a possible repeater. He also considered antenna types and polarization, the characteristics of the XK-F358 modem, the terrain, and the requirement that the modems support a 10 Mbps data channel.

According to Fedienko’s calculations, if one transmitter is at an altitude of 3 km and the other at 30 meters, the radio horizon will be about 248 km. At the same time, the point from which the Russians could transmit a signal from their territory is located much further away.

At 3.3 GHz in the middle of such a route, the first Fresnel zone, according to his calculations, will have a radius of about 81 meters, and for stable channel operation, about 49 meters of free zone are required.

Fedienko notes that even in his calculations he raised the Shahed to a height of 3 km. If the drone flies lower or begins to descend before the attack, maintaining a direct communication channel at such a distance becomes even more difficult.

That is why he calls one possible scheme the use of stationary transmitters already near the target, particularly in Kyiv. According to him, such a device simply needs to be connected to the Internet, after which data can be transmitted to the drone.

At the same time, Fedienko is considering another option—a mesh network. In such a scheme, one “Shahed” can actually work as a repeater for another, transmitting the signal further. The next drone continues the chain, so communication can be maintained over much greater distances.

According to the MP’s observations, during one of the attacks, the drones’ behavior could have resembled this pattern: one drone would remain in the air and act as a repeater until another appeared between it and the next point. After that, another drone could join the network.

However, in this case, Fedienko suggests that additional repeaters closer to Ukraine, particularly on Belarusian territory, might be needed to build the entire chain.

At the same time, Fedienko does not claim that the Russians actually use any of these schemes. These are technical versions of them, which, according to the MP, the relevant services should check.