Russia is now flying its Shaheds lower. Ukrainian drone and electronic warfare expert Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov said that Russia's Shaheds are increasingly shifting from mass attacks to single, complex strikes flown under manual control.
The shift in tactics is a Russian answer to how good Ukraine's interceptors have become.
Every step Russia takes demands fast adaptation of Ukraine
"Shaheds are increasingly moving away from the tactic of mass attacks toward single but complex strikes in manual-control mode," Beskrestnov wrote.
Commenting on a video he posted, he said that one Shahed dropped to an altitude of 22 meters to attack its target, aiming to slip beneath the radar and interceptors' view.
"But our guys managed," he wrote.
Every step Russia takes demands fast adaptation of Ukrainian countermeasures, he stressed.
The tactic extends a trend Beskrestnov and others have tracked for weeks.
As Ukraine's interception rate against gasoline-powered Shaheds climbed to 92-96% in the deep rear, Russia shifted from mass strikes toward selective targeting, picking important targets, running multi-phase reconnaissance, and probing Ukraine's radar coverage and interceptor engagement zones before striking.
Low and hand-flown is how you beat a 95% intercept rate
The 22-meter altitude and the manual control are two solutions to the same problem for Russia. A drone that flies low enough hides in radar clutter and ground return. A drone flown by hand in real time can jink around interceptors rather than following a fixed, predictable route.
Ukraine's interceptor success was behind the innovation. Russia's three-part response has been jet-powered Geran variants that outrun cheap interceptors, electronic-warfare additions on the drones themselves, and border-area targeting where mesh-radio control works and Ukrainian satellite jamming does not.
The single low-altitude manual strike is the fourth adaptation: when you cannot get a swarm through, you send one drone flown carefully enough to matter.
Beskrestnov knows firsthand how deadly the manual-control threat could be. In April, Russia tried to kill him with four jet-powered, manually-controlled Shaheds that destroyed his home and wounded him — the first time, he said, that Russia had used Shaheds to try to assassinate a specific person.
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