# ANALYSIS: Belarusian signal repeaters, Moscow's secret weapon against western Ukraine

> On June 19, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke the words no one had yet dared put so plainly since the start of the full-scale invasion: "If Belarus does not dismantle this equipment, we will do it ourselves." A seven-day ultimatum addressed directly to Belarusian

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/les-repeteurs-bielorusses-arme-secrete-de-moscou-contre-l-ukraine-profonde

## Introduction: When a communications tower becomes a weapon of war

### The ultimatum that changed the conflict's dynamic

On **June 19, 2026**, Ukrainian President **Volodymyr Zelensky** spoke the words no one had yet dared put so plainly since the start of the full-scale invasion: **"If Belarus does not dismantle this equipment, we will do it ourselves."** A **seven-day ultimatum** addressed directly to Belarusian dictator **Alexander Lukashenko**. A threat of direct military action against the territory of a third state. A red line crossed in Ukraine's public discourse.

The object of that ultimatum: **four signal repeaters** installed by **Russia** in the Belarusian regions of **Gomel** and **Brest**, along the Ukrainian border. These devices — mounted on telecommunications towers, on rooftops of buildings — allow Russian forces to pilot their **Shahed kamikaze drones** over extended distances, reaching targets in Ukraine's **Zhytomyr**, **Rivne**, and **Volyn** regions, at the country's far west — zones the Iranian-manufactured drones could not reach without this signal relay.

### Simple technology, devastating strategic impact

The technical sophistication of these repeaters is, in reality, modest. They are not cutting-edge weapons systems but radio signal relay devices that amplify and redirect flight commands sent by Russian drone operators. That very simplicity is what makes them so effective — and so difficult for Ukraine's conventional defenses to counter.

According to Ukrainian intelligence cited by **Zelensky** in his **June 20** address, this equipment had been used to coordinate **precision strikes** on locomotives in the **Volyn** region, **energy infrastructure** in **Zhytomyr**, and **rail installations** in **Rivne**. The **Institute for the Study of War (ISW)** confirmed in its **June 23, 2026** assessment that **Russia had been targeting trains and rail infrastructure with increasing frequency since summer 2025** in a bid to undermine Ukrainian logistics.

*What strikes me about this situation is the brutality of the logic: Russia uses the territory of a nominally sovereign state to amplify its capacity for destruction against Ukrainian civilians. And Lukashenko — that "sovereign" who hasn't truly been one since surviving his own political crisis in 2020 thanks to Moscow's support — lets it happen. Maybe because he has no choice. Maybe because he's complicit. Probably both.*

## Mapping a clandestine control architecture

### Gomel and Brest: the geography of forbidden relays

The two Belarusian regions identified by Ukrainian intelligence — **Gomel** in the southeast and **Brest** in the southwest — form the two corners of a remote-control architecture designed to maximize Russian drone coverage over western Ukraine. The **Gomel** region directly borders Ukraine's **Chernihiv** and **Zhytomyr** regions; the **Brest** region is adjacent to **Volyn** and **Poland**.

This geographic configuration is not accidental. It follows a precise operational logic: the **Iranian Shaheds** used by the Russians — and their variants produced in **Russia** under the names **Geran**, **Gerbera**, and **Italmas** — have flight ranges extending up to **2,500 km** for the longest variants, but their precision and maneuverability in the final leg of the trajectory depend on a stable ground guidance signal. Without relays, these drones fly in semi-autonomous mode; with the Belarusian repeaters, they become precision strike vectors capable of hitting moving targets like **locomotives in motion**.

### The January 2026 revelation and the progressive build-out of the network

The fact that **Russia** was using Belarusian territory to control its Shahed drones during attacks against **Ukraine** had first been made public in **January 2026**. It was then that the open-source intelligence collective **InformNapalm**, in collaboration with the cyber-analytics center **Fenix**, hacked the accounts of Russian military personnel and gained access to surveillance systems used by drone operators.

The Ukrainian hackers had not taken control of the drones — their goal was observation and the transmission of information to Ukrainian defense forces, which had **significantly improved the effectiveness of Ukrainian interceptions** according to **Militarnyi**. But knowledge of this Belarusian repeater network's existence had not immediately triggered diplomatic or military action. It was only in **June 2026**, as strikes on western Ukraine intensified, that **Zelensky** chose to make the ultimatum public.

*The question that haunts me: why wait five months between the discovery and the ultimatum? I understand the logic of not revealing sources, of letting surveillance run quietly, of exploiting access to enemy systems. But during those five months, Ukrainian civilians were being killed by drones guided from Belarusian territory. That's a defensible strategic choice — and at the same time deeply uncomfortable.*

## The night of June 21–22: one hundred and thirty-five drones and a lesson in warfare

### The mass attack as a show of force

During the night of **June 21–22, 2026**, Russian forces launched **135 drones** of various types against **Ukraine**: Shaheds of different variants, **Parodiya** (decoy lures), and **Banderol**. Ukrainian air defenses shot down **118** of them. **Thirteen** hit their targets in **11 localities**, damaging **energy infrastructure in Odessa**, a **fuel station in Zaporizhia**, and an **energy installation in Dnipropetrovsk** that caused **power blackouts**. Debris fell at **three additional locations**.

That night of **June 21–22** came in a specific context: Ukrainian intelligence had confirmed on **June 22** that the Belarusian repeaters had been silent since that same day — three days before **Zelensky**'s ultimatum expired. Was the **87.4 percent** interception rate (118/135) that night — one of the highest since the large-scale drone campaigns began — partly connected to the absence of Belarusian guidance? Ukrainian experts cautiously suggested the hypothesis without formally confirming it.

### ISW figures: a precise picture of the destruction

The **ISW assessment of June 23, 2026** provides valuable data on the scale of drone operations in the **Kharkiv** region: **more than 9,000 drone strikes** against that single region between **May 1** and **June 22, 2026**, of which **130 drones** had not yet been identified by Ukrainian authorities. That figure of **9,000 strikes in 52 days** — an average of **173 per day** — conveys the intensity of the Russian drone campaign in the Kharkiv area alone.

On rail destruction, the data are equally staggering: a Russian military blog had tallied **21 strikes against rolling stock** between **May 16** and **June 20–21, 2026**. In the **Zhytomyr** region alone, between **May 31** and **June 6**, **more than 20 locomotives** had been destroyed or damaged. This systematic targeting of the rail network represents a major strategic shift: **Russia** is seeking to paralyze not only military supply lines but also the civilian and economic mobility of **Ukraine**.

*Twenty locomotives destroyed in a single week in a single region. To someone outside the military, that figure can feel abstract. But the Ukrainian rail network is the backbone of the wartime economy: it carries ammunition, soldiers, and refugees. Destroying locomotives is an attempt to immobilize an entire country. The methodical cruelty of this strategy belongs to a state that has decided the suffering of the Ukrainian people is a legitimate tool of war.*

## Lukashenko's response: blinking or strategy?

### Three days to act: the surprising speed of the Belarusian response

What virtually nobody had anticipated in the ultimatum scenario: the speed of the Belarusian response. On **June 19**, **Zelensky** gives **Lukashenko** a week. On **June 22** — **just three days later** — the Ukrainian president confirms, on the basis of information from Commander-in-Chief **Oleksandr Syrskyi** and the intelligence services, that the Belarusian repeaters had stopped operating. **"They operated from Belarusian soil, they no longer do,"** said **Zelensky**, adding that he did not know whether the equipment had been physically dismantled or simply switched off.

The **Ukrainian Border Guard** confirmed a significant decrease in Shahed drone intrusions along the Belarusian border in the following days. The independent Belarusian outlet **Flagstok** reported a total absence of drone flights along that border for at least three consecutive days after the repeaters went silent. The **Ukrainian Border Guard** also recorded a notable drop in drone incursions in the **Chernihiv** region, directly exposed to the Belarusian route.

### Lukashenko attempts a balancing act

The shutdown of the repeaters fits within a broader attempt by **Lukashenko** to maintain operational distance from the war in **Ukraine** while remaining within **Putin**'s orbit. Since the start of the **2022** invasion, **Belarus** had provided its territory as a launch pad for some of the initial Russian offensives on **Kyiv**, allowed weapons and troops to transit, and contributed to the Russian-Belarusian logistical effort. But **Lukashenko** had also maintained a facade of non-direct involvement in the fighting, regularly insisting that **Belarus** did not want to be "drawn into the war."

**Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty** reported on **June 25, 2026** that **Lukashenko**, following **Zelensky**'s ultimatum, was "tempering his militarist rhetoric" in an effort to avoid being pulled further into the conflict. The **Kremlin**, for its part, announced that **Putin** and **Lukashenko** had planned to meet "in the near future" to discuss the Ukrainian ultimatum — suggesting that the decision to switch off the repeaters may have been discussed, or even approved, by **Moscow** itself.

*Lukashenko in this episode looks like someone measuring for the first time the real consequences of his complicity with Moscow. For four years, playing the role of Putin's subcontractor seemed to carry little risk. Now that Zelensky tells him "remove that or we'll do it ourselves," the nature of reality changes. He blinked. That may be the first real signal that Belarus is not prepared to die for Putin.*

## Kremlin pressure on Minsk: playing both sides

### Russia's cognitive campaign: reframing legitimate targets as provocations

In parallel with the repeater crisis, the **ISW** documented in its **June 23, 2026** assessment a Russian cognitive campaign aimed at reframing this episode: **Moscow** tried to present any potential Ukrainian military action against the repeaters as an **"aggressive Ukrainian provocation"** against **Belarus** and the Russian-Belarusian **Union State**. This rhetoric had a dual objective: to deter **Kyiv** from acting, and to lay the groundwork for a forceful response had a Ukrainian strike actually taken place.

**Kremlin pressure on Minsk** for more active participation in the war is documented and real. **Moscow** has long sought to draw **Belarus** further into the conflict, notably to stretch Ukrainian defenses across a more active northern front. The installation of the Belarusian repeaters was one modality of this progressive entanglement — a technical contribution that did not formally commit Belarusian soldiers but that made **Belarus** a de facto actor in the war.

### The acceleration of military construction along the border

The shutdown of the repeaters did not end tensions with **Belarus**. On **June 25, 2026**, **Zelensky** posted on **Telegram** that **"along our state border, Belarus is completing the construction of road infrastructure and storage facilities for ammunition and fuel, which serve no purpose other than military."** This intelligence-sourced information indicates that despite the repeaters going silent, the progressive militarization of the Belarusian border continues.

**Belarus** also announced **"mobilization exercises"** involving reservists near the Ukrainian border — an announcement made shortly after **Zelensky**'s ultimatum, which resembles a defensive show of force intended to signal to **Kyiv** that any military action against the repeaters would have had consequences. The juxtaposition of these exercises with the repeater shutdown illustrates **Lukashenko**'s logic: satisfy **Zelensky**'s demand while maintaining a visible military posture so as not to appear to have capitulated under pressure.

*This sequence — shutting down the repeaters while launching military exercises — is pure Lukashenko: always trying to satisfy two contradictory masters at the same time. In the short term, it works. In the long run, this double-game logic always ends up destroying whoever practices it, because it breeds total mistrust on both sides.*

## The operational impact on affected regions

### Zhytomyr, Rivne, Volyn: the regions that will breathe a little easier

For the populations of **Zhytomyr**, **Rivne**, and **Volyn**, the shutdown of the Belarusian repeaters represents a concrete — if fragile — relief. These three regions, located at Ukraine's far west, had lived since the repeaters came online under the constant threat of precision drones capable of striking specific targets: electrical transformers, rail junctions, fuel storage installations.

The **Zhytomyr** region had been particularly hard hit by the rail destruction campaign: according to **ISW** data, **more than 20 locomotives** had been destroyed between **May 31** and **June 6, 2026**. This systematic destruction is not only a military problem — it threatens the region's ability to supply its population, function economically, and maintain links with the rest of the country.

### Ukrainian resilience against the war of attrition

The Russian campaign targeting infrastructure since **summer 2025** pursues a clear strategic objective: breaking **Ukrainian resilience** by making daily life unbearable for populations not directly exposed to combat. Power cuts in the **Zaporizhia**, **Sumy**, **Kharkiv**, and **Chernihiv** regions reported by the **Ukrainian Ministry of Energy** following the **June 21–22** attacks illustrate this logic.

**Ukraine** responds to this war of attrition with a combination of **active resilience** — rapid restoration of damaged infrastructure, decentralized energy production systems, anti-drone shields — and **counter-strikes deep into Russian strategic territory**. **Zelensky** announced on **June 25** that Russia was moving air defenses from **Moscow** and other key sites to more distant positions following Ukrainian long-range drone strikes. This Russian defensive repositioning illustrates the growing pressure **Ukraine** is exerting on Russian territory itself.

*There's something deeply admirable about Ukrainian resilience — and something deeply outrageous about the fact that it is necessary. That an entire nation must develop expertise in accelerated reconstruction because a neighboring power decides to methodically destroy its civilian infrastructure is an obscenity that should outrage every democrat.*

## Russia's drone strategy: evolution and adaptation

### From Shahed to Starlink: the Russian army adapts

The Belarusian repeater affair illustrates a broader dynamic in the Russian-Ukrainian drone war: **Russia** constantly innovates and adapts to circumvent Ukrainian defenses. After **Ukraine** developed effective jamming systems against Shahed drones, **Russia** sought alternative solutions to maintain control over its long-range strike platforms.

Among those solutions: the use of Belarusian repeaters (now neutralized), but also — according to the **ISW** assessments of **June 23** — the installation of **Starlink terminals** on unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to attempt strikes against Ukrainian Black Sea coastlines. These **Starlink**-equipped USVs represent a Russian attempt to exploit American commercial connectivity for military operations — an irony that **SpaceX** and the U.S. government have had to address with the tools at their disposal.

### Balloon relays and foreign SIM cards

The **ISW** and **Euromaidan Press** have documented other workarounds developed by the Russians: launching **signal relay balloons** from **Belarus** into Ukrainian airspace, and equipping Shahed drones with **SIM cards** that automatically connect to Belarusian, Polish, and Romanian networks when Ukrainian jamming blocks Russian military signals. These adaptations reveal an operational Russian ingenuity that should not be underestimated, even if the **February 2026** strikes significantly degraded Iranian and Russian military capabilities in other domains.

The deactivation of the Belarusian repeaters is therefore a significant tactical victory for **Ukraine**, but not a definitive one in the drone war. **Russia** will continue seeking alternative solutions. Ukraine's drone interception rate of **87 to 88 percent** remains remarkable but cannot intercept 100 percent of incoming platforms — and the **12 to 13 percent** that get through still represent a real and lethal threat to civilian populations.

*The drone war is a war of permanent adaptation — a technological cat-and-mouse game where every defensive innovation generates an offensive innovation in response. Ukrainians are good at this game. Russians are too, in their own way. And at the end of the day, it is civilian lives that pay the price of every drone that slips through the net.*

## The implications for Lukashenko's future

### A regime caught between two contradictory pressures

The repeater episode has exposed a fundamental vulnerability of the **Lukashenko** regime: his position as the eternal intermediary between **Moscow** and his own survival interests is no longer tenable in the long run. On one side, **Putin** is applying increasing pressure for **Belarus** to participate more actively in the war — not only as a transit and logistical support territory, but potentially as a direct belligerent. On the other, **Zelensky** has now demonstrated that he is willing to threaten military action against Belarusian installations used against **Ukraine**.

**Lukashenko** chose, in a first instance, to satisfy the Ukrainian demand by deactivating the repeaters. But **Russia** has not abandoned its attempts to entangle **Belarus** further. The question remains open: how far can **Lukashenko** resist **Moscow**'s demands without risking the destabilization of his own regime? And how far is **Kyiv** prepared to tolerate Belarusian contributions to the Russian war effort without permanently crossing the threshold of direct military action against **Belarus**?

### The European Union and the delicate stance toward Minsk

The **European Union** backed the Ukrainian position in this crisis, stating that **"Ukraine has the right to self-defense and that the Belarusian regime is assisting Russia in its war."** That declaration is significant: it theoretically opens a legal justification for Ukrainian military action against targets on Belarusian territory under the right of **self-defense**.

For now, the question remains hypothetical since the repeaters have been deactivated. But the construction of military installations along the Belarusian border — documented by **Zelensky** on **June 25** — could reignite the debate. If these facilities are directly used for operations against **Ukraine**, the legal and political framework for a Ukrainian response will be different from what it was for the repeaters — because the demonstration that these structures **"serve no purpose other than military"** has already been established by **Zelensky** himself.

*The European Union was right to support the Ukrainian position. But I'm not naive: that support is more rhetorical than operational. Had Ukraine actually struck the repeaters on Belarusian soil, I would have liked to see how European capitals would have truly reacted to a Ukrainian military action on the territory of a third state. European courage on security tends to stop precisely where the risk of escalation begins.*

## Kostyantynivka and the war of attrition: figures that demand analysis

### Fifty-three Russian casualties to three Ukrainian: reading the data

At the heart of the analysis of Ukraine's war of attrition are figures that Ukrainian corps commander **Yuriy Madyar** made public on **June 23, 2026**: on the **Kostyantynivka** front, Russian forces are sustaining roughly **53 casualties per day**, against roughly **3 daily casualties** for Ukrainian forces. That **17-to-1 ratio** in the **Kostyantynivka** direction is spectacular — and must be analyzed with caution.

These figures come from a Ukrainian source, in a context where operational communication is also a tool of psychological warfare. That said, the **ISW** — which has no reason to propagate Ukrainian propaganda — confirms in its **June 23** assessment the broad outlines of the situation at **Kostyantynivka**: Ukrainian forces have cleared areas south of the city, there are significantly more Ukrainian than Russian soldiers in **Kostyantynivka**, and the Russians must travel **20 to 30 kilometers** to resupply their positions in the northern part of the city, relying on **drone drops** for their forward lines.

### What these figures reveal about the sustainability of the Russian offensive

The rate of **53 Russian casualties per day** in the single direction of **Kostyantynivka** — just one of many active combat directions — raises fundamental questions about the **human sustainability** of the Russian offensive. Even accepting that this figure is significantly inflated by Ukrainian sources, even accounting for the fact that "casualties" include killed, wounded, and prisoners, the human cost of the war of attrition for Russian forces is manifestly considerable.

Restrictions on gasoline and aviation fuel exports imposed by Russian officials across many regions since **early June 2026**, documented by the **ISW**, add a logistical dimension to this picture of problematic sustainability. A country forced to ration civilian fuel in regions as remote as **Kamchatka** is a country whose war economy is beginning to show signs of structural strain.

*I remain cautious about casualty figures in any conflict — both sides have an interest in manipulating them. But the combination of ISW data, indirect confirmations from the Russian side (fuel restrictions, documented logistical difficulties), and the ground dynamic at Kostyantynivka paints a coherent picture: Russia is losing a lot to gain little. This is not a victory within reach. This is a war of attrition that Moscow thought it would win quickly and that now stretches into a duration that exhausts.*

## The regional impact: what Rivne, Volyn, and Zhytomyr tell us

### Regions away from the front line but under the bombs

One of the specificities of the Belarusian repeater campaign is that it targeted regions of **Ukraine** not on the direct front line. **Zhytomyr**, **Rivne**, and **Volyn** — at the country's far west — are hundreds of kilometers from the most intense combat zones in the **Donbas** or **Kharkiv**. These regions host a significant share of **Ukraine's internally displaced persons** — the millions of people who fled combat zones to take refuge in the west of the country.

Striking them with precision drones guided from **Belarus** sends a deliberate message: nowhere in **Ukraine** is safe. Nowhere is out of reach. This strategy of diffuse terror aims to demoralize the Ukrainian population, discourage displaced persons from settling, and demonstrate that **NATO** cannot protect its neighbor. The deactivation of the Belarusian repeaters strips this strategy of one of its most precise tools — which is good news, even if it is only one battle in a war that goes on.

### Immediate future: the coming weeks will be crucial

The situation in the weeks ahead will be decisive for measuring the real impact of the Belarusian repeater shutdown. If drone flights along the northern border remain significantly reduced, if the number of strikes in western Ukrainian regions decreases measurably, then **Zelensky**'s ultimatum will have constituted a significant diplomatic-military victory — a demonstration that **Ukraine** can, through firm threats, change its neighbors' behavior.

If, on the contrary, **Russia** quickly finds alternative remote guidance methods — reinforced balloon relays, SIM cards on a larger scale, or even repeaters deployed closer to the Russian border to compensate — then the episode will have amounted to only a temporary respite. The truth will likely lie somewhere between these two extremes: a partial, temporary reduction in drone effectiveness along the northern route, compensated over several weeks by Russian adaptations.

*What is certain is that Zelensky crossed an important rhetorical and political threshold. He said "we will do it ourselves" and he got the result he wanted without firing a single shot. That's a demonstration of force through credibility — one of the most effective and least costly forms of power in human lives. He should take note for the next crises of this type.*

## Ukraine's reaction on the ground: tactical adaptation

### An army learning in real time

The **deactivation of the Belarusian repeaters** on June 22, 2026 immediately forced the Ukrainian army to recalibrate its air defense operations. The antimissile defense systems deployed along the habitual drone penetration axes from Belarus could be partially repositioned toward other more threatened sectors. This tactical flexibility illustrates one of the Ukrainian armed forces' major assets in this war: the capacity for rapid adaptation to changes in the operational environment.

According to Ukrainian border guard data reported on June 24, there had been no **"mass Shahed drone flight"** along the Belarusian-Ukrainian border in the days following the repeater shutdown. That is a direct and measurable result of Ukrainian action — whether through Zelensky's ultimatum or through less public means. The reduction of precision strikes on the Volyn, Rivne, and Zhytomyr oblasts represents a **direct improvement in the security** of millions of Ukrainian civilians in those regions.

### The role of Ukrainian intelligence in this victory

The precise identification of the four repeater stations in the **Gomel and Brest oblasts** required **sophisticated technical intelligence work**. This kind of information — exact location, frequencies used, network architecture — is not obtained by chance. Ukrainian intelligence services, backed by **NATO partners** with advanced electronic surveillance capabilities, built this dossier over several months before Zelensky decided to make it public in the form of an ultimatum.

The decision to make this ultimatum public — rather than transmitting the information discreetly — was itself a deliberate tactic. By publicly naming the installations and setting a deadline, Zelensky created international pressure on **Lukashenko** that made maintaining the repeaters politically costly. That is a form of **coercive diplomacy** that worked — at least provisionally.

*Technical intelligence is invisible right up to the moment it changes everything. Ukrainians knew exactly where these installations were, how they functioned, and who was responsible. And they chose the right moment to play that card. That's not luck — that's strategic competence.*

## Lukashenko's politics: calculated neutrality or forced obedience

### The Belarusian dictator in an increasingly untenable position

To understand why the repeaters were deactivated, you need to understand **Alexander Lukashenko**'s increasingly delicate position. Since Prigozhin and his attempted rebellion shook Moscow in 2023, Lukashenko has been the forced host of **Wagner** troops on his territory. His regime only survived the mass protests of 2020 thanks to Putin's support. He is structurally dependent on Moscow — but that dependence is not synonymous with military enthusiasm.

Lukashenko has consistently refused to commit Belarusian troops directly to the war in Ukraine, despite Russian pressure. The deactivation of the repeaters can be read as another episode of this **policy of non-active engagement**: not doing everything Moscow asks, maintaining room to maneuver, quietly signaling to the West that he is not entirely subordinated. It is political survival more than sympathy for Ukraine.

### The limits of Russian pressure on Minsk

According to the ISW assessment of June 23, the Kremlin is intensifying pressure on **Lukashenko** to implicate him further in the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister **Sergei Lavrov** used a lunch with the Belarusian ambassador in Russia to characterize Zelensky's demand for repeater removal as an attempt to "draw Belarus into the war." That is a classic rhetorical reversal: presenting the refusal to facilitate attacks on civilians as an act of Belarusian self-defense.

What Lavrov did not obtain is significant: Belarusian ambassador **Yuri Seliverstov** did not echo Russian talking points at that same meeting. That is a weak but documented signal that Minsk maintains a calculated distance from Moscow's most extreme positions. In a war where every signal counts, this **non-repetition** carries the weight of a declaration.

*Lukashenko has been walking a tightrope since the start of this war. Too close to Moscow and he risks sanctions, isolation, and perhaps one day a fate similar to Putin's. Too distant and he loses the protection that keeps him in power. The repeater shutdown may be his way of testing how far he can go in that direction without losing Kremlin backing.*

## Russian drones without repeaters: new trajectories, new vulnerabilities

### Russian adaptation to the loss of Belarusian relays

The loss of the Belarusian repeaters does not mean the end of Russian drone strikes. According to analysts from the **RUSI** (Royal United Services Institute) in London cited by Ukrainian sources, Russia is seeking to establish replacement positions in **occupied Crimea** and in the **Rostov** region. These alternative sites present a major drawback, however: they are far more exposed to Ukrainian long-range strikes than the installations in Belarus.

The reduction in effective Shahed range without repeaters is documented: according to available estimates, **control ranges drop by 120 to 180 kilometers**. That means some deep Ukrainian targets — notably in the Volyn, Rivne, and Zhytomyr regions — become harder to reach with precision. Russia partially compensates by launching **larger volumes of drones** without precision guidance, accepting a higher failure rate in exchange for a volume that saturates defenses.

### A mixed scorecard for Russia

The overall balance of the Russian drone campaign since the start of the full-scale invasion is both impressive by volume and disappointing by relative effectiveness. The **372,000 tactical drones** documented as lost in Ukrainian Ministry of Defense data — the vast majority shot down by Ukrainian air defenses — represent a colossal expenditure of resources for operationally limited results in the medium term. Ukrainian infrastructure has been damaged, but **Ukraine continues to function** and to fight.

This reality forces Russia into a constant reassessment of its long-range strike strategy. Each improvement in Ukrainian air defense — each new system delivered by Western partners, each gap in Russia's setup closed through experience — makes the strikes less effective. The **loss of the Belarusian repeaters** is one more cost in this permanent war of adaptation that Russia is waging on a technological battlefield where it is increasingly at a disadvantage.

*Drone technology evolves faster than military doctrines. What Ukrainians have learned in two years of drone warfare places them at the global cutting edge of tactical missile defense. Ironically, Putin has created in Ukraine the world's most experienced force in this domain. And that experience will not disappear with the end of the conflict.*

## What the world will remember from the Belarusian repeater episode

### A diplomatic precedent in hybrid warfare

The Belarusian repeater episode will remain in strategy textbooks as a remarkable example of **successful coercive diplomacy**. Zelensky identified a specific vulnerability in the Russian setup, documented it publicly, set an ultimatum with a clear deadline, and obtained a result in three days — before the deadline even expired. This is a demonstration of what **strategic transparency** can accomplish when used well.

This precedent raises an important question for the months and years ahead: are there other similar infrastructures — in other countries, other regions — that facilitate Russian military operations and could be targeted by similar diplomatic pressure? Ukrainian intelligence services probably know the answer. And if Zelensky decided to make this one public, it may be because there are other similar cards in his hand, waiting for the right moment.

### Lessons for modern hybrid warfare

The war in Ukraine has redefined what it means to wage a 21st-century conflict. The Belarusian repeaters illustrate the **gray infrastructure** dimension of hybrid warfare: nominally civilian installations, located on officially neutral territory, used to facilitate military strikes against civilians. This gray zone — deliberately maintained by Russia to maximize its utility while minimizing its accountability — is at the heart of Russian hybrid war doctrine.

Zelensky's ultimatum and its outcome showed that this gray zone is not impervious. By precisely documenting the mechanism — how these repeaters function, who operates them, what damage they enable — Ukraine made Minsk's complicity politically untenable at the international level. That is a model of **active exposure of hybrid infrastructure** that other countries facing similar forms of indirect warfare could apply.

*Hybrid warfare operates in shadow and ambiguity. The antidote is light and precision. Zelensky illuminated a specific Russian operation, with coordinates, names, and mechanisms. And the light was enough. That is a lesson that reaches far beyond Ukraine.*

## Conclusion: One repeater is off — the war is not

### The Belarusian shutdown: a real victory in a continuing conflict

The Belarusian repeater episode illustrates several important truths about the nature of this conflict. First, the technological war waged by **Russia** against **Ukraine** relies on infrastructure networks that extend well beyond Russian territory — and the identification and neutralization of those networks are a legitimate strategic priority for **Kyiv**. Second, **Belarus** is not a neutral actor in this conflict, whatever **Minsk**'s official rhetoric: Belarusian territory is being used as a platform for aggression against **Ukraine**, with real consequences for civilian populations in western Ukrainian regions.

Third, and perhaps most importantly: **Zelensky**'s **June 19** ultimatum worked. It produced, in less than seventy-two hours, the deactivation of the equipment in question — without a shot fired, without a Ukrainian strike on Belarusian soil, without direct military escalation. That is a diplomatic victory that deserves to be recognized as such.

### What this reveals about the sustainability of Russia's strategy

**Russia**'s dependence on relay infrastructure located on third-party territories to maximize the effectiveness of its drones reveals a significant operational constraint: its long-range guidance capabilities without external support are limited. This constraint is valuable knowledge for Ukrainian military planners and their Western partners. It indicates that the drone war, far from being won by anyone, remains a domain where each side's tactical innovations have immediate strategic repercussions — and where neutralizing a single node in the enemy's network can have disproportionate effects on the ground.

*This moment in history can only be fully understood with hindsight. What we are watching unfold here will have consequences that reach far beyond tomorrow's headlines.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [ISW — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, June 23, 2026 — June 23, 2026](https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-23-2026/)

- [Ukrainska Pravda — Zelenskyy expects concrete action from Lukashenko — June 21, 2026](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/21/8040451/)

- [Euromaidan Press — Kyiv gave Belarus ruler week to pull Russia's drone relays. They went silent in three days — June 24, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/24/kyiv-gave-belarus-ruler-week-to-pull-russias-drone-relays-they-went-silent-in-three-days-zelenskyy-says/)

- [United24 Media — Belarus shuts down drone signal repeaters ahead of Zelenskyy's 7-day ultimatum deadline — June 24, 2026](https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/belarus-shuts-down-drone-signal-repeaters-ahead-of-zelenskyys-7-day-ultimatum-deadline-20140)

### Secondary sources

- [Militarnyi — Zelensky: Belarus must remove relay stations for Russian drones — June 20, 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/zelensky-belarus-must-remove-relay-stations/)

- [RBC-Ukraine — Zelenskyy warns Belarus of consequences over aid to Russia — June 20, 2026](https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/zelenskyy-warns-belarus-of-consequences-over-1781977890.html)

- [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — Belarusian Leader Tempers War Rhetoric After Zelenskyy Ultimatum — June 25, 2026](https://www.rferl.org/amp/belarusian-leader-tempers-war-rhetoric-after-zelenskyy-ultimatum/33788859.html)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/les-repeteurs-bielorusses-arme-secrete-de-moscou-contre-l-ukraine-profonde