Chinese radios power Russia’s longer-range drone strikes

Russian forces have significantly extended how far they can fly and control attack drones inside Ukraine over the past year by switching many of them to mesh-network radios, according to a report from Kyiv-based analytics firm KI Insights.

The technology, called MIMO mesh radio, lets a drone act as a mobile relay point in a decentralized radio network rather than depending on a single, direct radio link back to its operator. Since 2025, Russia has fitted the system to several of its drone types, including the Geran and Gerbera strike drones, the Orlan and Supercam reconnaissance drones, and the Lancet, Scalpel and Molniya models, according to the report, authored by Etienne Hertz, a radio-frequency specialist based in Ukraine.

Ukrainian military sources told KI Insights that a chain of mesh-linked drones can now maintain live operator control up to 150 to 175 kilometers (93 to 109 miles) from the farthest Russian ground station, roughly double what Russian mesh networks could manage in 2025. Russian pilots have demonstrated real-time control over Geran and Gerbera drones flying near the city of Dnipro, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the front line, the report said.

On July 17, a Geran drone operated by Russia’s 50th Separate Operational Brigade of Unmanned Systems Forces, known as Varyag, struck a gas condensate plant near Seleshchyna in Ukraine’s Poltava region while flying 125 kilometers (78 miles) from Russian-held territory and maintaining direct operator control the entire time, according to the report. KI Insights said Varyag has increasingly struck targets in Ukraine’s Sumy and Chernihiv regions rather than its earlier focus further south, a shift the firm said could signal Russian preparation to intensify operations along a northern front.

The mesh radios enabling this reach are not Russian-made. KI Insights traced the hardware to two Chinese manufacturers, Shenzhen Sinosun Technology and Shenzhen Xingkai Technology, with a Saint Petersburg-based company called Ajax Technologies distributing some of the radios inside Russia. The report said Russia remains fully dependent on Chinese components for the underlying mesh radio hardware, even if Russian engineers have contributed to how the systems are integrated into drones.

Mesh radios cost considerably more than the alternative many drone operators use, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite terminals, which run slightly above $400. Russia’s Chinese-made mesh modems cost between $2,000 and $12,000, and their range drops off sharply beyond 100 to 200 kilometers, unlike Starlink’s near-global coverage. Mesh links also carry higher latency, or delay, than Starlink, making them less useful against fast-moving targets, according to the report. Bureau 1440, a Russian satellite company, is expected to extend Russian drone operator range further later this year through a new satellite constellation called Rassvet, KI Insights said.

The report highlighted one specific case: Russian forces in the Zaporizhzhia area have converted the low-cost Molniya 2R drone, which normally costs $800 to $1,200, into an airborne mesh relay node by adding cameras, onboard computer-vision processors and a mesh radio, raising its cost to an estimated $4,000 to $5,000. Because the modified Molniya can both process its own sensor data and forward signals from other drones dozens of kilometers away, it lets Russian forces maintain aerial relay coverage cheaply and repeatedly, without relying on more expensive, harder-to-replace drones like the Orlan.

KI Insights said the range and video quality this technology provides has helped Russia shift many of its piston-engine Geran-2 and Gerber drones away from long-range strikes deep into Ukraine, where Ukrainian air defenses intercept 90 to 95% of incoming drones, and toward mid-range attacks on stationary infrastructure such as passenger trains and gas stations. The firm said this campaign has disabled or damaged more than 250 gas stations across northeastern, eastern, central and southern Ukraine.

KI Insights assessed that Russia’s mesh-drone capability is moving toward technological parity with NATO drone fleets and could pose risks to NATO logistics in a future conflict involving Russia or Belarus, though the firm noted Russian video links still carry higher latency than NATO systems typically tolerate. The report did not specify a timeline for when Russian capabilities might reach that level, or how Ukraine’s own electronic warfare units plan to counter the expanding mesh networks.