The National Broadcasting Corporation reported that according to the statement of four US officials, the Russian army has disrupted US military drones carrying out combat missions in Syrian airspace, seriously affecting US military operations.
Officials said that a few weeks ago, after a series of alleged chemical weapons attacks on civilians in East Gutta’s armed opposition zone, the Russians began interfering with a few small US drones. Officials said the Russian military feared that the US military would retaliate and start interfering with the global GPS tracking system used by drones operating in the area.
Republican Senator Ben Sasse reacted on Tuesday to reports of interference with Russia: “Russia wants to undermine our interests all the time”.
Said: “Those who think that Russia is not an enemy are crazy.”
According to Dr. Todd Humphries, director of the Radio Navigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, blocking or preventing drones receiving signals from GPS satellites is not necessarily complicated.
He said: “Most GPS drone receivers can be very easily disturbed.”
Humphreys, an expert in GPS spoofing and scrambling, warned that this could have a major impact on UAVs in the US, causing them to malfunction or even crash. He said that if the drone reports an incorrect position or is lost, “at least, this can cause some confusion for unsupervised ground operators”.
According to Dr. Humphries, four years ago, after the invasion of Crimea, US analysts discovered for the first time in eastern Ukraine that Russian troops were interfering with drones. These radar cell phone jammer “have had a considerable impact on unmanned aerial vehicles deployed by the United Nations to conduct surveillance missions in the region.” The crew stopped for several days and was unable to collect information by air.
Pentagon spokesman Eric Paquin, the US Department of Defense will not hold, if such interference will lead to drone accidents, and pointed out that US military drones are currently operating safely. “The US military has enough countermeasures and safeguards to ensure the safety of our manned and unmanned planes, our troops and the tasks they support.”
However, an official confirmed that such interference has an impact on US military operations in Syria.