It’s the first wrap of 2025 and there’s plenty to report regarding new equipment.
With the new year in full swing, there are plenty of new observations and developments from the front lines. We’ve got drones with cope cages, a new development regarding radio direction-finding techniques, and reports of low-flying Shahed’s being paired with decoys.
We’ve also got drones carrying drones for attack purposes. So, with that said, let’s get into it.

Low Flyers

Our first post touches on something from the last wrap of 2024. This referenced decoy drones being sent in with the Shaheds, namely the Parody & Gerbera systems. The example post included video footage, which showed the Shaheds at near rooftop height as you can see from the below image.
This ties in with the reports that systems appear to be coming in at around 40–50 meters altitude. This is not enough altitude to clear high-rise buildings but as we’ve ascertained over the past few years, the Russians see that as a feature, not a bug.

Cope Cages

This one is extremely simple. FPV Drones + Cope Cages is the new reality.
Not sure what that does to aerodynamics and weight, but apparently that’s where things are at.
This looks to cover both the top side and underside of the drone. The included video isn’t particularly high quality but it does give an example of how it works.
It’s unknown if this is a one off, or more regularly used system.

Video Intercepts

As we’ve mentioned before, EW and Interception systems are in a constant tit-for-tat battle across the front lines. This includes systems to both detect and jam drone signals, including off-the-shelf and FPV systems.
As we’ve reported in previous articles, the frequencies seem to vary depending on countermeasures. This article reports that now, 700mhz is in play and it appears to be causing a few issues across the front.
As frequencies move up and down the spectrum in an attempt to evade EW, both sides will look to exploit small advantages that help them gain the upper hand. Of course, this isn't a problem for fibre optic drones, but no doubt people are working hard on countermeasures for those too.

Naval Drones With Drones

And now for the big news of the week. Ukraine heard you liked drones, so they designed a naval system that's an unmanned naval drone that carries 4 FPV attack drones.
While FPV drones are currently all the rage, they are at best, a short-ranged tactical system that doesn't have the range to move too far away from the operator.
This has changed now. Now, we see this naval drone using relay systems to act as a range extender, meaning that the operator can work from stand-off ranges.
This system has already been battle-proven, with a well-publicised attack carried out over the holiday break. Intel points to the system having a range of approx 20km.
It’s reasonable to expect that this may be variable depending on location, propagation and countermeasures but there’s no denying that this is a system that will make life uncomfortable for Black Sea assets as well as systems across the coastline.
While the FPV systems don’t carry a particularly large warhead, this setup will allow it to be moved quite close to targets and leverage sneak attacks to make the most of the attack.
This is also verified by the fact that there have already been murmurs of this new system on Russian telegram chats. They don’t like it which means that this is probably going to be a great system for Ukraine.
I am looking forward to finding out more regarding this as the system undergoes further use and development.
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