Ukraine war latest: Russian 'mothership' drones push Ukraine to consider SIM card passport rules
Key developments on Feb. 18:
- Russian 'mothership' drones prompt Ukraine to weigh passport requirement for SIM card sales
- Explosion at Ukrainian military enlistment office declared terrorist attack
- Ukraine hits 6 Russian military targets, including S-300VM missile launcher, General Staff says
- Ukraine's SBU denies Zaluzhnyi's claim that office was raided in 2022 while army commander
Ukraine is considering requiring passport verification for the purchase of local SIM cards in response to Russia's latest use of FPV (first-person-view) drones, Serhii Beskrestnov, adviser to Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, wrote on Feb. 18 on Telegram.
Russia has increasingly deployed so-called "mothership drones" — large unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that can carry and launch smaller drones. The tactic has significantly extended the range of FPV drones, which previously operated within 20–30 kilometers (10-20 miles), to much farther distances.
Russian forces are using LTE mobile networks and Ukrainian SIM cards to remotely control FPV drones, according to Beskrestnov.
"(The Russians) figured out they could deliver FPV drones on winged UAVs to areas with strong, stable mobile coverage, and then drop the drones on targets," Beskrestnov said.
Beskrestnov added that operators control the drones from inside Russia, with UAV flight times lasting "literally minutes."
Restricting the sale of Ukrainian SIM cards is one potential countermeasure, but Beskrestnov acknowledged it is "politically unpopular" and would require changes to national legislation.
The measure would not eliminate the threat of Russian drones entirely, but it could curb the scale of what he called an "uncontrolled process" of SIM card sales.
"In Russia, SIM cards are typically sold with passports, but it is not hard to obtain them through criminals or homeless people," Beskrestnov said, adding that Russian forces primarily rely on new SIM cards.
Another potential way to limit the effectiveness of Russian FPV drones is to disable certain data transmission services. Yet Beskrestnov warned that such steps would be "painful" for the country as well.
In early 2026, Ukrainian forces documented the first use of Russian Gerbera and Molniya drones as "mothership" platforms. In February, a similar tactic was recorded with the long-range Shahed-type drone, developed by Iran and mass-produced by Russia.
Russian forces are using FPV drones carried by "mothership" UAVs to strike civilian targets and vehicles. The tactic has also fueled so-called "human safari," a brutal tactic in areas near the Russian border or Russian-occupied territories, where drones are increasingly deployed against civilians.
Explosion at Ukrainian military enlistment office declared terrorist attack
An explosion at a military enlistment office in the city of Kolomyia, in western Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, has been classified as a terrorist attack, the regional prosecutor's office said.
The news comes amid a rise in attacks on vehicles belonging to military personnel across Ukraine. In the past two weeks alone, two such incidents have been reported in Odesa.
No one was injured in the explosion, which occurred overnight on Feb. 18, but the blast shattered windows and damaged the office.
Investigators and bomb disposal experts continue to work at the scene, the report read.
Prosecutors, together with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the National Police, are investigating the circumstances of the incident, including its cause and those responsible.
Russian special services frequently recruit Ukrainian citizens, including minors, to carry out subversive activities. Many are approached through social media, where they are offered money to complete illegal tasks.
At the same time, amid Ukraine's ongoing mobilization efforts, draft offices are often accused, at times justly, of forced conscription without compliance with fundamental civil rights and ill-treatment of conscripts.
Over the past year, Ukraine's Human Rights Ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, received 6,127 complaints — nearly twice the number reported in 2024.
The most common complaints involve restrictions on freedom of movement during detention, superficial medical examinations by military medical commissions, violations in processing conscription deferrals, illegal confiscation of personal belongings, and unlawful detention in enlistment offices, the ombudsman said.
Ukraine hits 6 Russian military targets, including S-300VM missile launcher, General Staff says
Ukrainian forces struck six Russian military targets over the past two days, Ukraine's General Staff said on Feb. 18, including overnight attacks on military facilities in Russian-occupied territories.
The General Staff said the strikes included a cluster of Russian drones near the village of Trudove and targeted a drone workshop in the town of Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, according to the report.
Other strikes hit a Russian communications hub in the village of Staromlynivka and a concentration of military equipment in the city of Donetsk in Donetsk Oblast.
The General Staff also confirmed that a Feb. 17 strike near Mariupol destroyed a launcher for the S-300VM anti-aircraft missile system, also known as the Antey-2500, with an estimated value of at least $120 million.
The system is capable of intercepting short- and medium-range ballistic, aeroballistic, and cruise missiles.
In addition, Ukrainian forces struck on Feb. 17 drone control centers in the village of Salne in Russia's Kursk Oblast and in the village of Rodynske in Russian-occupied Donetsk Oblast.
Ukrainian drones also recently targeted a Russian facility in Tver Oblast that produces fuel components for Kh-55 and Kh-101 cruise missiles, according to a source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) familiar with the operation.
The strike hit the Redkino Experimental Plant, which manufactures Decilin-M rocket fuel and fuel additives for diesel and aviation kerosene. The attack underscores Ukraine's focus on disrupting Russia's advanced missile production and military logistics.
Ukraine routinely strikes Russian military facilities, as well as oil infrastructure that helps Russia finance its war and supply the Russian army with weapons, fuel, and equipment.
Ukraine's SBU denies Zaluzhnyi's claim that office was raided in 2022 while army commander
Ukraine's former Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi claimed in an interview that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) raided his office in September 2022, the Associated Press reported on Feb. 18.
The raid allegedly took place at a time of rising tensions between Zaluzhnyi, who is currently Ukraine's ambassador to the U.K., and President Volodymyr Zelensky over how to defend the country against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The SBU has denied the allegation.
"During that period, the Security Service of Ukraine was conducting investigative actions as part of another criminal case focused on combating organized crime across a large number of addresses," the SBU press service told the Kyiv Independent.
"A recently established clandestine backup command post of Valerii Zaluzhnyi was located at the time at one of the addresses that appeared in that criminal case. No searches or investigative actions by the Security Service took place at that address. Moreover, Vasyl Maliuk and Valerii Zaluzhnyi personally communicated about this immediately after, and the situation was clarified."
The alleged raid was described by Zaluzhnyi as "an act of intimidation," according to AP. Zaluzhnyi reportedly warned Andriy Yermak, Zelensky's chief of staff at the time, that he had "already called in reinforcements to the center of Kyiv for support" and that he "knew how to fight."
The address was once the location of a strip club allegedly linked to a criminal organization but it had been closed and reopened at a different location since before the start of the full-scale war, AP reported.
The Kyiv Independent reached out to Zelensky's office for comment but hasn't gotten a response as of publication time.
Zaluzhnyi was dismissed as the commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in February 2024. Since then, he has been serving as Ukraine's ambassador to the U.K.
Zaluzhnyi has largely refrained from commenting publicly on the rumored tensions with Zelensky, emphasizing the need for national unity amid wartime. Still, speculation persists about his political ambitions in the country. He is widely regarded as a frontrunner in future presidential elections.
Amid the major corruption scandal that ultimately forced Yermak’s resignation, Zaluzhnyi publicly called in November for "political change" in the postwar era.
In the political reshuffle that followed the aftermath, Zelensky met in mid-January with Zaluzhnyi among other prominent figures in what the President's Office described as a "new policy of openness and engagement."
