This week, there are new drones, new countermeasures and long-range attacks.

There’s no denying that the Russia — Ukraine conflict has been shared in extensive detail on social media. As such, one of the best ways to stay ahead of what’s happening across the front lines of Ukraine is to turn our OSINT skills to social media and analyse social media posts to find out about the conflict.

The Telegram wrap is a recurring piece that looks at interesting pieces of Ukrainian language information that have been posted to Telegram recently. With this, we aim to cover all the latest developments regarding drones and the usage of the radio spectrum.

One thing to remember though. The posts are taken from Telegram and written up without any fact-checking or additional analysis performed, so you’ll need to draw your own conclusions regarding authenticity and credibility.

New Interceptor Drone

Our first post is an interesting one that originally was observed on Bluesky. Featuring a Ukrainian interceptor drone, the imagery appears to have been taken using a Russian reconnaissance drone.

It’s noted that the design is using a rear-mounted propeller system, which should, in theory, allow for a greater top speed than a simple quad can achieve.


It also features a heavy nose and unique wing design, so all in all, an interesting system that we will no doubt be seeing more of.

If you’d like to look at the original post regarding this system, you can visit this link.

The Banderol

With quadcopters and the Shahed-136 playing a key role in this conflict, there's no denying that propeller-based designs have played a key role in prosecuting this conflict. However, as the Ukrainian air defence network has become stronger and electronic warfare strategies have improved, we’ve seen new emphasis placed on the speed and maneuverability of attacking systems.


Now, we have the Banderol. While the initial information is light, we are able to ascertain some details on the system. It’s a jet-powered barrage munition with a cruise speed of around 500km/h, giving it the ability to ingress and egress into an area more rapidly than the Shahed-based systems.

It also appears that the designation of a loitering munition has become quite controversial, with a second post observing that the same design could also be tagged as a UAV. This led to some interesting discussions around what exactly should and should not be classed as a loitering munition.

Shahed Tail Identifiers

For the Russians, the Shahed has played a key role in scaling up aerial attacks and depleting Ukrainian missile batteries. At the start of the war, importing versions directly from Iran gave Russia a way to rapidly scale up weapon stockpiles without incurring the manpower or financial costs that come with setting up new production lines.

Over time, we’ve seen Russia scale up production, which has included the usage of organic local production lines as well. However, figuring out where exactly these drones were coming from was a challenging task.

Not anymore though. This post gives us information regarding the Tail designators on Shahed systems, which now gives us an idea regarding where a specific system was produced.
It appears that K, KM & KC relate to Izhevsk-based production lines, while the letter M designates an overseas-designed system (typically Iran).

Shahed systems coming from the Alabuz factory can be identified with the Cyrillic characters Ы and Л.

Shahed Factory Attack

A key philosophy of cold-war era US Navy doctrine, was the “shoot the archer, not the arrow” approach. Using long-range F-14 Tomcats paired with the AIM-54 Phoenix missile, the Navy aimed to destroy Soviet bomber systems before they were able to use anti-shipping missiles to prosecute aircraft carrier battle groups.

Today, we’ve seen a similar approach by Ukraine when it comes to suppressing Russian drone attacks on Ukrainian soil. Rather than using Tomcats though, the Ukrainians are relying on organic, long-range drone systems to hold Russian production facilities at risk.


This post references such an attack made on the Alabuga plant in Russia. The video shows Russian air defence systems attempting to shoot down inbound Ukrainian systems. While it appears that some systems were indeed, able to be intercepted, it’s unclear how many others managed to get through.

Fibre Optics

In previous articles, we’ve had plenty to say about some of the problems that fibro optic drones bring to the front lines. Providing an easy to use system that is resiliant to EW and other defensive mechanisms, fibre-based designs are still causing plenty of chaos along the front lines.


This post is quite interesting as it confirms that realistically, neither side has come up with effective countermeasures to help repel such designs reliably. It notes that audio, thermal and radar based systems are all under analysis while each method comes with it’s own benefits and drawbacks.

Ukraine has already had some success using networked smartphones as acoustic-based systems, but given the complexity of the problem at hand an effective solution to this issue may still be some time away.

Send The News

Have you got an interesting tip? Seen an intriguing Social Media post that you think needs some extra attention or research? We’re always looking for new stories that focus on current events and issues.

So, if you find something that you think is worth a story, send an email or find us on Twitter / X to send your story.

If you’d like to review the source channel on Telegram for today’s material, you can do so by visiting this link.

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