Zelensky: Belarus border relay stations used to guide Russian drones went offline

President Volodymyr Zelensky told journalists that the relay stations on the Ukraine–Belarus border, which had been assisting in guiding Russian drones, went offline on June 22.

Zelensky said that Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander in Chief Oleksandr Syrsky and the intelligence services had reported the shutdown to him. It remains unknown whether the equipment has been physically dismantled.

Ukraine has long maintained that antennas located on Belarusian territory are part of two-way video communication systems used with Russian long-range drones such as the “Geran” and “Gerbera” types that attack Kyiv. Russian forces, like the Ukrainian Armed Forces, use mesh networks for video communication with drones: UAVs equipped with cameras and specialized modems act as airborne relay stations for one another, allowing communication over dozens or hundreds of kilometers. However, they receive their primary signal from ground-based relay stations. Ukraine believes that the Russian relay stations for mesh networks in the Kyiv area are located in Belarus.

In recent days, Ukrainian border guards have recorded a decrease in the frequency of Russian strike drone flights through the Chernihiv region and an absence of mass Shahed drone transits along the Belarus–Ukraine border, said Andrii Demchenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service.

The relay stations in question, according to Zelensky, were used to guide strikes against Ukraine from Belarusian territory. On June 19, Zelensky demanded that Alexander Lukashenko have the relay stations removed and threatened that if they were not taken down within a week, Ukraine would remove them itself. Lukashenko has not publicly commented on Zelensky’s remarks.