Its sheer size would suggest that the content of the shell wasn't helium / hydrogen, but something only somewhat less dense than air - thus requiring a large volume
The fact that "accidents" were arranged as an excuse to make the airship extinct suggests they were something else entirely
Which brings me to this - a staged photo from World War I - you'd think that by this point cannonballs would be long out of production
And yet here they are, doing something with them
At this point I'd like to remind you that plasma toroid weapons are very real, and they are of tremendous power - and the smoothbores of the mid-19th century were exactly that
"Cannonballs" then must have been the power source
"Soviet authorities forbade them to keep vereyas in their original design and forbade them to make portable vereyas (because it could be easily turned into a powerful weapon)"
It also mentions the surviving Old Believers being hunted by the Soviets and reconstructing a devastating 19th century weapon - which looked remarkably like a certain chess piece
Said chess piece is still called "cannon" in South Slavic languages