Russia is wiring its long-range attack drones together by a mesh network in flight and buying pricier, higher-resolution cameras for them, Ukraine's Air Force reported on 29 September. Its spokesperson said one drone could serve as a scout, strike drone, and relay for the rest, which is why they often fly one behind another over long distances. Chains of them keep crossing near the Belarus border, UkrInform reports.

For Ukraine, the danger in each such upgrade is arithmetic: the more Russia networks cheap, once-disposable drones and pushes its control links away from the front, the harder they become to jam or shoot down, and the more of them reach the cities they are aimed at.

Sharper, pricier eyes

Ihnat said on a national broadcast that Russia is sourcing higher-quality materials and raising the resolution of its drone cameras. The cameras it buys are increasingly expensive and higher-quality, he said, which lets its operators study the ground in fine detail and use each drone for a specific purpose.

On a mesh network, he said, the drones talk to each other and hand the control signal back toward the operator, so no single link has to carry it alone.

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Chains along the Belarus border

Asked about relays operating out of Belarus and about Russia's guidance of jet-powered Shaheds, the exploding drones it fires in swarms, Ihnat said Moscow had already claimed its satellite network was ready. He confirmed mesh networks are in use and said their use was quite dangerous. Ukraine has no information yet on whether Russia is using towers, he said.

It often sees drones crossing long distances in chains along the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, so nothing can be ruled out, but intelligence would have to confirm whether such relays exist. Asked whether Russia is preparing a fresh ballistic strike, he said intelligence would warn when extra vigilance is needed.

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Ukraine's countermeasures

Ihnat has also said Russia launched more attack drones in September than in August, counting 3,177 jet-powered drones so far this month against 2,850 in August. To knock them down, Ukraine leans mainly on tactical aviation, including F-16 fighters, and on ground-based air defense when missiles are available, he said, with shoulder-fired man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) working well against jet drones inside their range. He said Ukraine needs more missiles for both Patriot systems and ground-based launchers, plus faster domestic solutions it can scale up.

Russia has a new warhead for its drones, and it is built to cut down power lines. For the first time, a jet drone has carried a shaped "cumulative-cutting" charge designed to sever high-voltage pylons and iron bridges, Serhii Beskrestnov, presidential adviser, known as Flash, said, as Russia opened its heaviest assault on Ukraine's power grid since last winter.

On 30 September, Russia launched its massed fall-winter campaign on Ukraine's energy infrastructure since the last heating season, hitting power sites across 11 regions overnight with missiles and drones, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said.

The new warhead fits the aim: Flash says it is meant to bring down the high-voltage lines that carry the country's electricity. And Ukraine enters the winter exposed, with its energy resilience plans less than half complete.

A new charge targets the pylons

The device, which Flash calls a cumulative-cutting special load, is designed specifically to bring down high-voltage pylons and iron bridge structures.

"It consists of a main charge weighing 40 kilograms and four strike modules," he says.

In his reading, Russia intends to go after the major transmission lines that move power across the country, the backbone of the grid, rather than the substations it has struck before.

The campaign builds toward November

On 29 September, two senior Ukrainian officials told The Economist that Russia launched a three-part campaign of attacks on Kyiv, combining massive bombardments, sabotage, and the creation of political chaos. These efforts aimed at destabilizing the Ukrainian capital would peak by November, they said.

According to a representative of the Security Service of Ukraine, Russia has "thousands" of drones in its arsenal and is simultaneously expanding its stockpile of ballistic missiles. The plan is to "deploy the entire arsenal over the next two months," given that Ukraine lacks an effective weapon against jet-powered drones.

A Russian drone exploded in Moldova on 30 September, detonating near the mast of a civilian mobile operator, TV8 reported. Despite previous such attacks, this one may have another purpose, according to Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military analyst.

Moldova, which borders Ukraine and is not in NATO, has become a regular waypoint and casualty of Russia's drone war, with wreckage turning up repeatedly this year. What sets this strike apart is its timing, days into a fight over the country's pro-EU president.

A drone hits a telecoms mast

Police were alerted at 5:43 a.m. to a drone flying low over Bender, in Transnistria, the general police inspectorate said. It came down near Hîrbovăț and detonated against the mast of a civilian mobile operator, leaving blast marks along about 12 meters of the structure, with the metal deformed and scorched. Service was not disrupted. Police cordoned off the area, and specialists were examining the debris.

A second drone follows

Hours later, at 10:26, Moldova's air-monitoring system detected a second drone crossing its airspace, jet-powered and heading toward the northern town of Soroca, Moldova's Defense Ministry reported, according to European Pravda.

Flights were suspended over the country's north and center. Parliament speaker Igor Grosu condemned the strike: "Russia will answer for its war crimes," he says.

An analyst ties it to the impeachment

Meanwhile, Russian drones entering Moldova on this day is no coincidence, he argues, coming as the opposition moves against President Maia Sandu.

On 29 September, 46 opposition lawmakers registered a motion to suspend her, a step that would need 67 of parliament's 101 votes to pass and, if approved, a referendum within 30 days, Moldova Live reported.

Kovalenko contends pro-Russian forces are running a destabilization campaign they will reinforce with periodic drone attacks, pressing a message at Moldovans: "if you don't want war, get rid of Sandu."

Russia is preparing to make daily life in Kyiv harder before winter, aiming at the ordinary places civilians use rather than at military sites, The Economist reported. Ukrainian officials say the push blends bombing, sabotage, and disinformation, and expect it to peak in November.

Every winter of its full-scale invasion, Russia has tried to freeze Ukrainians into surrender, and each year the strikes reach deeper into ordinary life. The civilian casualties recorded in 2026 have already passed the whole of last year, the UN says.

From the power grid to the grocery store

Russia has already turned its drones on Kyiv's supermarkets, food warehouses, and data centers this year. On 28 September, a Russian jet drone struck the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv. The strike killed two people, the Academy said. Survivors climbed from the windows of the burning building. A senior Ukrainian official told The Economist the Kremlin now wants shoppers too afraid to enter a store. Russia is also keeping its winter routine, hitting electricity, water, and sewage systems.

Cheaper jet drones that stream live to their pilots

Most of the damage now comes from Russia's cheap jet drones, The Economist said. Pilots guide them onto targets and watch a live video feed. They are hard to stop, and Russia's ballistic missiles are deadlier still as Ukraine's supply of Patriot interceptors dwindles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv had agreed a new Patriot interceptor package, but it remains short of interceptors of its own. A security official told The Economist that Russia has thousands of drones stockpiled and plans to use its entire ballistic missile stock within two months.

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Sabotage, chaos, and a city that won't switch off

Ukraine's counter-intelligence services say they foil seven or eight Russian plots a week, and officials believe some sleeper cells remain. The campaign's third element, disinformation, targets war fatigue and corruption scandals. Russia runs the same plan every year, hoping its bot farms will push Ukrainians onto the streets to demand surrender, said Andrii Kovalenko, who heads the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council.

"It's nonsense," he told The Economist, adding that someone is feeding the idea to Putin so they can steal more money.

Kyiv is also far harder to shut down than Moscow assumes, Kovalenko said. The city's internet is too decentralized for a handful of strikes to knock out, The Economist noted. Energy expert Olha Babii said the test is how fast crews restore power, not whether it can be destroyed. The capital is emptying, its population down from about 3.7 million to 3.3 million by The Economist's count.

A Ukrainian defense company has shown a new way to knock FPV drones out of the sky, unveiling a net-firing interceptor at the IT Arena tech conference in Lviv, dev.ua reported. The system, called Mangal and developed by Phantom Defense, is still a prototype—the company says the first production units could reach the market in a few months.

Ukraine's counter-drone work has turned into a crowded contest, with firms racing to field jammers, interceptor drones, and net-throwers that can blunt Russia's growing use of cheap FPVs.

What Mangal does

Phantom Defense designed the modular launcher to defend positions, vehicles, and other targets against enemy drones. It fires a special net weighted with sinkers. The net opens the moment it fires, tangling the drone and dragging it down. One module holds six charges. Two cameras give the crew a clearer view, and the system can detect targets on its own, which speeds up how fast an operator spots a threat. Crews can fix Mangal in place to guard checkpoints, trenches, or infrastructure, or bolt it onto a vehicle.

Why a net

FPV drones—aircraft a pilot flies straight into a target—have become a routine danger along the front. A small, fast drone is hard to hit with a single round. A net spreads as it travels, so it is more forgiving to aim. Neither Phantom Defense nor the outlets covering the launch have said how far Mangal's net can reach.

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Other net-based counters

Other developers are turning to nets too. The WINFLY Spider is an interceptor drone that snares a target in a net and returns to its launch point intact, at about $27 a shot. That lets one aircraft make repeated intercepts instead of being spent on a single kill. Scan Horizon comes from Postup Solutions, a firm registered in Wrocław, Poland, and pairs a net launcher from Ukrainian company Ptashka Drones. Its net reaches about 30 meters. Contra Drone, meanwhile, has shown interceptor missiles that can reportedly carry net warheads alongside other options.