By Open Chronicle with agencies
Russia is continuing to upgrade the navigation systems fitted to its long-range attack drones, with Ukrainian specialists warning that a new generation of anti-jamming antennas could appear on Russian weapons as early as this month.
The latest development involves 20-element controlled reception pattern antennas, or CRPAs, designed to make satellite-guided weapons more resistant to Ukrainian electronic warfare. Russian attack drones currently use several antenna configurations, including 16-element systems, according to Ukrainian defence technology adviser Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov.
Beskrestnov says Russia is preparing to introduce the 20-element version during September and is already planning another step. VNIIR-Progress, a Russian company associated with the Kometa family of anti-jamming navigation systems, is expected to move toward serial production of 24-element antennas in 2027, according to his assessment.
The claims concerning the precise Russian production schedule have not been independently confirmed. However, the broader trend is well documented: Russia has repeatedly modified the navigation, propulsion and communications systems of its attack drones in response to Ukrainian countermeasures.
A recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that Russian Geran drones have undergone rapid changes in their CRPA systems, progressing through different Russian and Chinese designs as Ukrainian electronic warfare capabilities improved.
From 16 antennas to 20, and eventually 24
The technical changes illustrate the increasingly important battle being fought inside the electromagnetic spectrum.
Satellite-guided weapons depend on signals from navigation constellations such as Russia’s GLONASS and other global navigation satellite systems. Those signals are relatively weak by the time they reach Earth, making them vulnerable to powerful electronic interference.
CRPA systems attempt to overcome that problem by using multiple antenna elements and signal-processing techniques to distinguish legitimate navigation signals from interference.
Increasing the number of elements does not make a weapon immune to electronic warfare. It can, however, improve its ability to reject interference arriving from different directions, complicating the task facing Ukrainian jammers.
Beskrestnov said Russian Shahed-derived drones initially appeared with relatively simple four-element systems before progressing through eight and 16-element configurations. The anticipated 20-element system would represent another stage in that evolution.
CSIS has independently documented a similar progression in recovered Russian Geran systems, including Russian Kometa modules and Chinese CRPA designs with increasing numbers of antenna elements. The organisation concluded that the changes appear closely connected to improvements in Ukrainian jamming.
Russia also upgrades inertial navigation
The antenna development is only one part of the Russian effort.
Beskrestnov said Russia upgraded the inertial navigation systems fitted to some Shahed-type attack drones several weeks ago. These systems allow a weapon to continue estimating its position and maintaining its course when satellite navigation becomes unreliable or temporarily unavailable.
The combination matters.
Satellite navigation can provide highly accurate positioning, but it can be jammed. An inertial navigation system does not depend on an external radio signal, although its positional accuracy can gradually deteriorate as errors accumulate.
Combining the two allows a drone to use satellite signals when they are available and fall back on inertial navigation when electronic warfare disrupts them.
Russia’s improvements are therefore aimed not simply at making GPS or GLONASS reception stronger, but at making the entire navigation chain more resilient.
Not every Russian drone has an operator behind it
The developments also highlight an important distinction between different types of drones appearing over Ukraine.
Some remotely controlled aircraft depend on an active communications link between the drone and an operator. Disrupting that link can prevent the operator from transmitting commands or receiving information from the aircraft.
But Beskrestnov says a significant proportion of the jet-powered attack drones being used against Ukraine do not require continuous online control.
Instead, they navigate autonomously using satellite positioning combined with inertial guidance.
That changes the electronic warfare problem.
There may be no operator communications link for Ukrainian systems to sever. Defenders instead have to interfere with the navigation signals the weapon uses to determine where it is.
Even then, an improved inertial navigation system can allow the aircraft to continue toward its programmed destination after satellite reception deteriorates.
Russia has also demonstrated remotely controlled variants. Ukrainian officials have reported cases involving Geran-type drones believed to have maintained communications through cellular or mesh-network systems.
The result is an increasingly diverse Russian drone force in which visually similar weapons may operate using significantly different guidance and communications architectures.
Banderol and Dan weapons present the same challenge
The technological contest extends beyond the Shahed and Geran families.
Beskrestnov has specifically identified Russia’s Banderol and Dan-T weapons as systems that rely on satellite and inertial navigation rather than continuous online control. He argues that this makes navigation-focused electronic warfare particularly important in attempts to disrupt them.
Recent public information about the Dan-T supports the basic navigation description.
At the El Alamein Air Show in Egypt this month, Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport presented a Dan-T air-launched weapon with a stated GNSS/INS guidance system, meaning satellite and inertial navigation. The advertised version had a maximum range of 450 kilometres, a maximum speed of 500 kilometres per hour and a warhead of up to 130 kilograms.
Janes reported that the displayed Dan-T appeared almost identical to Russia’s S8000 Banderol, which Russian forces have used in Ukraine since 2025. The precise relationship between the various Dan and Banderol designations has evolved and should therefore be treated carefully rather than assuming that every Dan variant is the same weapon.
From target drone to attack weapon
Russia has also converted older Dan-M target drones into one-way attack weapons.
The Dan-M originated as a jet-powered aerial target developed by Russia’s Sokol design bureau for air-defence training. Its purpose was to reproduce some of the flight characteristics of incoming cruise missiles, including the American Tomahawk, allowing Russian air-defence crews to practise against representative targets.
In 2025, Ukrainian authorities reported encountering modified Dan-M aircraft configured for attack missions.
Ukraine’s military intelligence subsequently said it had shot down one of the converted aircraft over the Black Sea while it was heading toward Odesa.
The conversion demonstrated another feature of Russia’s wartime adaptation: existing systems originally designed for training or other purposes can be modified into operational strike weapons.
Chinese components remain part of the equation
Foreign components are also important to Russia’s ability to keep modifying its drones.
CSIS found Chinese CRPA modules in Russian Geran drones and documented the appearance of increasingly sophisticated Chinese antenna configurations alongside Russian-built Kometa systems.
Beskrestnov has separately said that Chinese suppliers are developing higher-element systems for Russian applications. Specific claims about components being disguised as agricultural equipment remain difficult to independently verify from the available public evidence.
What can be established is that Chinese electronic components have become an important part of the Russian drone supply chain.
The European Union has also identified VNIIR-Progress as a significant Russian developer of military electronic warfare and anti-jamming technology. EU sanctions documentation specifically describes the company’s Kometa-M adaptive antenna technology as being used on systems including Orlan-10 drones and guided bomb kits to improve resistance to electronic interference.
A cycle of adaptation and counter-adaptation
The broader picture is not one of Russia developing an electronic warfare solution that Ukraine cannot counter.
Instead, it is an iterative technological contest.
Ukraine develops more effective satellite-navigation jammers. Russia introduces better anti-jamming antennas. Ukraine modifies its electronic warfare systems. Russian engineers change antenna geometry, guidance software and inertial navigation. Both sides then study recovered weapons and battlefield results before beginning the cycle again.
The Financial Times reported this month that Russia’s newer jet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 drones are already presenting Ukrainian air defences with a more difficult challenge because of improvements in speed, range, targeting and resistance to electronic warfare.
Ukraine is responding with its own rapidly evolving technology.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that Ukraine was testing a new domestically developed interceptor that had successfully destroyed a jet-powered Shahed-type drone, although further technical work remained necessary. Ukraine says dozens of domestic companies are now developing counter-drone systems.
Electronic warfare remains critical
The shift toward more autonomous Russian weapons makes electronic warfare more complicated, but not irrelevant.
If an attack drone is being remotely piloted, defenders may attempt to disrupt its command-and-control connection.
If the aircraft instead follows a pre-programmed route using satellite and inertial navigation, the target changes. Electronic warfare systems must interfere with the navigation environment rather than an operator’s control link.
Russia’s increasingly sophisticated CRPA antennas are intended to make that considerably harder.
The progression from four and eight-element antennas to 16-element systems, and now potentially 20 and 24-element arrays, demonstrates how quickly technologies once considered specialised are evolving under battlefield pressure.
For Ukraine, the challenge is therefore larger than simply destroying more drones.
It must continually adapt its jamming systems, interceptor drones, missiles, sensors and conventional air defences as Russia modifies the weapons they are designed to defeat.
The contest between Russian navigation technology and Ukrainian electronic warfare has become another arms race within the wider war, measured not only in missiles and drones produced, but in antennas, algorithms, radio frequencies and the ability of each side to adapt faster than the other.