Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense

For this reason, jamming is a frequent focus of Flash’s work. In a January post on his Telegram channel, for instance, which people viewed 48,000 times, Flash explained how jammers used by some Ukrainian tanks were actually disrupting their own communications. “The cause of the problems is not direct interference with the reception range of the radio station, but very powerful signals from several [electronic warfare] antennae,” he wrote, suggesting that other tank crews experiencing the same problem might try spreading their antennas across the body of the tank. 

It is all part of an existential race in which Russia and Ukraine are constantly hunting for new methods of drone operation, drone jamming, and counter-jamming—and there’s no end in sight. In March, for example, Flash says, a frontline contact sent him photos of a Russian drone with what looks like a 10-kilometer-long spool of fiber-optic cable attached to its rear—one particularly novel method to bypass Ukrainian jammers. “It’s really crazy,” Flash says. “It looks really strange, but Russia showed us that this was possible.”

Flash’s trips to the front line make it easier for him to track developments like this. Not only does he monitor Russian drone activity from his souped-up VW, but he can study the problems that soldiers face in situ and nurture relationships with people who may later send him useful intel—or even enemy equipment they’ve seized. “The main problem is that our generals are located in Kyiv,” Flash says. “They send some messages to the military but do not understand how these military people are fighting on the front.”

Besides the advice he provides to Ukrainian troops, Flash also publishes online his own manuals for building and operating equipment that can offer protection from drones. Building their own tools can be soldiers’ best option, since Western military technology is typically expensive and domestic production is insufficient. Flash recommends buying most of the parts on AliExpress, the Chinese e-commerce platform, to reduce costs.

While all his activity suggests a close or at least cooperative relationship between Flash and Ukraine’s military, he sometimes finds himself on the outside looking in. In a post on Telegram in May, as well as during one of our meetings, Flash shared one of his greatest disappointments of the war: the military’s refusal of his proposal to create a database of all the radio frequencies used by Ukrainian forces. But when I mentioned this to an employee of a major electronic warfare company, who requested anonymity to speak about the sensitive subject, he suggested that the only reason Flash still complains about this is that the military hasn’t told him it already exists. (Given its sensitivity, MIT Technology Review was unable to independently confirm the existence of this database.) 

EMRE ÇAYLAK

This anecdote is emblematic of Flash’s frustration with a military complex that may not always want his involvement. Ukraine’s armed forces, he has told me on several occasions, make no attempt to collaborate with him in an official manner. He claims not to receive any financial support, either. “I’m trying to help,” he says. “But nobody wants to help me.”

Both Flash and Yurii Pylypenko, another radio enthusiast who helps Flash manage his Telegram channel, say military officials have accused Flash of sharing too much information about Ukraine’s operations. Flash claims to verify every member of his closed Signal groups, which he says only discuss “technical issues” in any case. But he also admits the system is not perfect and that Russians could have gained access in the past. Several of the soldiers I interviewed for this story also claimed to have entered the groups without Flash’s verification process. 

It’s ultimately difficult to determine if some senior staff in the military hold Flash at arm’s length because of his regular, often strident criticism—or whether Flash’s criticism is the result of being held at arm’s length. But it seems unlikely either side’s grievances will subside soon; Pylypenko claims that senior officers have even tried to blackmail him over his involvement in Flash’s work. “They blame my help,” he wrote to me over Telegram, “because they think Serhii is a Russian agent reposting Russian propaganda.”