A few hidden transmitters may be sitting somewhere in Kyiv, switching on just long enough to steer Russian drones onto their targets. Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov, known as Flash, says one to three concealed enemy repeaters may be operating in the capital, giving Russia a brief online channel to guide jet-powered Gerans onto precise targets.

He calls the devices MESH repeaters, compact modems that relay a short control signal to a Geran at the moment of attack, a channel Ukraine has been testing electronic warfare against for months. As long as they operate, he warns, sealing the city with jammers will not work.

Flash makes the case

"I now insist that the enemy's MESH radio repeaters are being switched on in Kyiv, providing a temporary, short-term control channel for jet-powered Gerans to adjust strikes," Flash says.

He keeps the number low: "Maybe 1 to 3. Such repeaters are hard to find, but we have to search." As evidence, he points to the guided strike on the headquarters of Ukraine's Security Service. A Russian agent, he said then, likely switched on a MESH relay within five kilometers of the target for the length of the attack.

The wreckage shows no other hidden link, he adds: "No LTE, no Rassvet, no alien quantum modems."

Jamming alone won't shield Kyiv

The stakes, in his telling, run past the bridges.

"As long as online control of the drones exists, not only the bridges but the air-defense assets on them will be under threat," Flash explains, noting that a Gepard anti-aircraft gun on a bridge crossed by tens of thousands a day cannot be hidden.

Without a stable channel right up to the impact point, he argues, a drone cannot strike a bridge pier or cable precisely. He leaves room for doubt, ending, "Let me be wrong about the repeaters." Yet in the whole war, he adds, he has "never once been wrong" in his technical reads of the enemy.