Ukraine diverts Putin’s drones to Russia

kyiv is clearly using digital warfare to divert Russian drones towards Belarus or Russia.

Thomas Wanhoff / t-online

Russian air attacks have increased in recent days on kyiv and the rest of Ukraine. Russia is clearly trying to overload Ukraine’s air defenses again by launching massive attacks. But kyiv has found a trick to literally hit Russia with its own weapons.

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The drones that Putin’s troops send toward Ukraine are guided by GPS signals that tell them the coordinates of their targets. So far, both Ukrainian and Russian special forces have managed to jam these signals, disorienting the drones. But the ingenuity of kyiv specialists has now managed to do something new, the newspaper reports The World.

Drones receive a new destination

They use an approach called “spoofing.” “Spoofing” is a method of electronic deception in which hackers falsify information or identities in order to deceive other people or systems.

In the case of Russian drones, “spoofing” is used to give them a new destination. If the initial coordinates point them towards the city of kyiv, the Ukrainian jammers erase the Russian GPS data and replace it with others, sending the drones back to Russia – or to neighboring Belarus.

Between November 24 and 26, 43 Russian Shahed drones reportedly crossed the border with Belarussays the Belarusian Hajun project, which collects publicly available information in the country. Combat aircraft from the Lukashenko regime were even deployed four times. Other drones have been returned to Russia.

Ukrainian military says 3,482 unmanned vehicles were used against civilian and military targets in Ukraine from September to October. Although most of the drones were intercepted, debris from the downed aircraft damaged or ignited dozens of homes.

Unintended side effect of «spoofing»

However, spoofing also has an undesirable side effect. In early November, citizens of kyiv reported that they could no longer order a taxi using their cell phones. The clocks on their phones showed the wrong time, and quite a few Ukrainians suddenly saw Russian cities like Moscow and Belgorod as their location markers. Others arrived at work an hour late because their cell phone alarm went off too late.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces then had to recognize that the electronic warfare systems used to repel Russian air attacks could disrupt watches or GPS signals from smartphones. Residents were advised to turn off the automatic time setting on their cell phones. Indeed, this is also controlled by GPS satellites.

Translated and adapted from German by Léa Krejci

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