Ukraine is actively redirecting Russian explosive drones back toward Russia and Belarus by confusing their navigation systems, according to a new report, as Moscow hammers Ukraine with large-scale kamikaze uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and missile strikes.
Kyiv has been "spoofing" the Russian-launched, Iranian-designed Shahed drones by "intercepting satellite coordinates," French daily newspaper Le Monde reported, citing an anonymous source close to Ukrainian military intelligence.
Newsweek has reached out to Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency and air force for comment.
Navigation systems used in weapons like drones can be jammed, where location tracking is blocked, or fall prey to spoofing. This is where a device is given false location data, making its systems confuse its true whereabouts.
Jamming and spoofing have been widespread in Ukraine, as well as in the Middle East and across parts of Europe in recent months. The U.S. uses Global Positioning System, or GPS, while Russia uses a constellation of satellites known as GLONASS.
Early on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched a "record number of strike drones" at Ukraine overnight, totalling 188 explosive UAVs. More than 90 of these drones were "lost due to location disruption," the Ukrainian leader said.
Ukraine's air force separately said electronic warfare had knocked 95 drones off course, with five UAVs flying toward key Russian ally Belarus.
Belarus-based open-source intelligence outlet, the Hajun Project, said on Tuesday that "at least 17" Russian Shahed drones had passed from Ukraine into Belarus overnight. Three more Shahed drones were reported in Belarusian airspace by the monitoring project over the following two nights. Newsweek has reached out to the Belarusian foreign ministry via email for comment.
Moscow used Belarus, perched on Ukraine's northern border and on the doorstep of NATO members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, as a springboard to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine's former commander-in-chief and current ambassador to London, General Valery Zaluzhnyi, said last year that Ukraine had started using a "nationwide" electronic warfare system, dubbed "Pokrova," which could spoof Russian satellite navigation along the front line and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Ukraine has a large cache of electronic warfare systems that can jam or spoof drone navigation and communications, military technology expert and journalist David Hambling told Newsweek.
Shahed drones are relatively easy for Ukraine's air defenses, including large-caliber machine guns or man-portable air defenses, to shoot down. However, they are hard to detect in time, as they can fly close to the ground to avoid being picked up on Ukrainian radars.
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