Serhiy (Flash) Beskrestnov, an adviser to the President of Ukraine, stated that over the past year, no one in the Armed Forces of Ukraine had been working on technologies to counter mesh networks – the jet-powered drones controlled by Russian occupiers that are currently attacking Ukraine.
"Throughout the entire war, I haven't criticized anyone… But today I want to "thank" the former Chief of the General Staff and his electronic warfare chief for the fact that, over the past year, no one in the Ukrainian Armed Forces has systematically worked on technologies to counter mesh modems, and no one has shielded the capital with electronic warfare measures, while watching the enemy develop this technology. As a result, we are now being struck by Shahed drones controlled via Mesh," Beskrestnov said on Facebook on Friday evening.
A mesh network is a decentralized computer network topology in which nodes connect directly to one another and act as switches. A large number of nodes creates multiple possible paths for data transmission, and one of the key properties of such a network is self-healing. At the same time, although a mesh network is more resilient than a centralized one, it is also vulnerable.
Later, Beskrestnov added in the comments: "As soon as I saw a mesh modem in the UAV, I bought two, tried to overload them with what I had, confirmed that it was possible, and shared my experience. From that moment on, we should have started conducting electronic warfare against mesh networks. A year ago."
