Ukraine's cheap interceptor drones have been knocking Russia's nightly attackers out of the sky, so Russia has now bolted a jammer onto some of its own drones to blind them, according to Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine's President on defense technology. He examined the system, found in drone wreckage, and mapped how it strikes back at the interceptor sent to hunt it.

Russia batters Ukrainian cities with long-range drones most nights, and Ukraine has leaned on a cheap shield—drones costing a few thousand dollars—instead of burning through far pricier missiles. Anything that dulls that shield pushes the cost of defending the sky back up.

A jammer that waits for the interceptor

The unit rides on a Geran, Russia's version of the Iranian Shahed one-way drone. It listens for the video signal an approaching Ukrainian interceptor beams back to its pilot. Its receiver reads the interceptor's working frequency, then orders a transmitter to bury that same channel in noise, Beskrestnov found.

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By his first estimate, the jammer's signal runs about five times stronger than the interceptor's video link—enough to wipe the picture and any chance of steering the drone onto its target.

Seconds decide it

In Beskrestnov's account, the system detected a test transmitter and switched on jamming after about three seconds, and the feed cut out. The device stays nearly idle until a hunter comes close, then jumps to full power to smother the signal. It targets the ordinary analog video band around 5.8 gigahertz that many cheap interceptors still use.

Possible answers, include interceptors with terminal-guidance homing for the final stretch of flight, digital communication links, or transmitters set to non-standard frequencies.

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An old problem for Russia's drones

Russia has tried again and again to keep its one-way drones alive against Ukraine's defenses, including wiring jammers into some Shaheds earlier this year. Spending weight and power to protect a drone from a far cheaper interceptor shows how well those cheap drones work.

Humanitarian supplies stored for the coming winter in Kherson burned in a Russian drone attack, the Ukrainian Red Cross said. The fire at the organization's warehouse also took stock kept for emergency repairs after Russian strikes. The attack injured no staff or volunteers, and Red Cross teams keep working in Kherson and Kherson Oblast.

Winter equipment, medical supplies, and blankets among the burned stock

The attack occurred on the evening of 23 August. The fire damaged or destroyed aid worth almost UAH 28 million ($626,000), the Red Cross said. Part of the stock was equipment and materials for the autumn and winter period. Another part was held for fast response after Russian shelling, including materials for temporarily covering damaged buildings. The warehouse also stored medical supplies, blankets, hygiene kits, and equipment for supplying water and electricity.

Kherson and the de-occupied part of Kherson Oblast come under Russian attack every day with various weapons. Authorities there report civilian casualties and damage daily. Ukrainian prosecutors have documented more than 11,000 small-drone attacks on civilians since 2024, with nearly half of the cases in Kherson Oblast.

Aid the Ukrainian Red Cross stockpiled for winter in Kherson burned in a Russian drone attack

Aid stores keep burning across Ukraine

In early August, the Ukrainian Red Cross said Russian forces had subjected its facilities to "unprecedented attacks" in July, which hurt its ability to respond quickly and deliver aid to people. A massive Russian attack on Kyiv damaged one of its warehouse complexes, burning 320,000 units of humanitarian cargo and hospital equipment worth more than $1.77 million. Russian forces destroyed a Red Cross humanitarian aid warehouse in Kherson on 20 December 2023. 

Other aid stores have burned this summer, among them a World Health Organization medical warehouse in Dnipro and a Kyiv Oblast warehouse holding HIV-prevention supplies.

Ukrainian drones struck a logistics complex belonging to Russian online retailer Ozon in Orenburg on 23 August, the second Ozon warehouse hit in two days, monitoring Telegram channels reported. The site sits about 1,200 km from the war zone, near Russia's border with Kazakhstan. Hours earlier, a large fire tore through a separate warehouse outside St. Petersburg, roughly 900 km north of Ukraine, though local authorities declared no drone or missile threat.

Drones hit Russia's biggest Ozon warehouse

Ukrainian monitoring channel Exilenova+ published video of the strike moment, after which a fire took hold on the site. Independent Russian outlet Astra analyzed eyewitness footage showing an emergency vehicle racing toward the depot. The complex spans more than 200,000 m² and was designed to hold over 31 million items, ranking among Ozon's biggest in Russia.

The warehouse stands inside the city's special economic zone, a tax-favored industrial park on the eastern edge of European Russia. The first phase opened in August 2024, and a second building followed in 2025.

Orenburg mayor Albert Yumadilov claimed several drones were downed over the special economic zone and that debris fell on the Ozon complex, starting a fire that crews quickly put out with no one hurt. 

Ozon confirmed the strike, saying it evacuated more than 300 workers, pulled its goods from the marketplace and stopped taking new deliveries while the site sat idle. 

A second fire near St. Petersburg, with no air-raid alert

Overnight, a large blaze hit a warehouse in the Kolpino area south of St. Petersburg. Astra established that the warehouse stood about 350 m from an Ozon site, and witnesses said they heard no drones or air defense. Ukrainian Telegram channel Exile+ identified the burning facility as a storage warehouse run by Logistera.

Part of a widening campaign on Russian marketplace logistics

The Orenburg hit followed the first-ever Ozon strike a day earlier, at a warehouse in Chapaevsk, Samara Oblast. Before turning to Ozon, Ukrainian drones had struck more than 10 warehouses belonging to the larger Russian marketplace Wildberries. Such marketplace hubs move not only consumer goods but dual-use items like electronics and drone components that can reach Russia's military.