Invisible shield protects Putin from UAV attack plot
Fake GPS transmitter could neutralize any attack on the Russian President using armed UAVs.
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FSO forces protected Mr. Putin during his visit to Austria in 2014. Photo:RBTH. |
Experts at the US Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) recently discovered an interesting phenomenon: every time Russian President Vladimir Putin approaches a port, the global positioning system (GPS) signals of the ships docked there will be disrupted, and the locations displayed on the map of these ships will even be "pushed" to an airport dozens of kilometers away.
C4ADS believes this phenomenon shows that Mr. Putin is often protected by a fake GPS signal system, which acts as an invisible shield capable of disrupting weapons and equipment guided by global positioning signals.
According to the report, the GPS spoofing device is very effective in countering attacks on Russian leaders by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Specifically, the device will continuously transmit the coordinates of a nearby civilian airport to UAVs approaching Putin's location.
Commercial UAVs today are often programmed with a safety mechanism to automatically land or stop operating when entering the airspace of a civilian airport. Therefore, in theory, when these UAVs approach Putin to conduct an attack, they will be disabled as soon as they catch the signal of the GPS signal faker.
In an effort to undermine the advantage of high-precision weapons from the West, the Russian military has long invested significantly in improving its electronic warfare capabilities, particularly the ability to jam enemy communications systems.
Russia has been a pioneer in using these weapons to block radio waves, GPS and radar signals in Ukraine and Syria. In Syria, US military commanders have complained about the harsh electronic warfare environment and called for moves to improve electronic warfare capabilities.
"Russia continues to be a pioneer. Moscow has the ability to use this technology not only to protect key personnel and strategic facilities, but also to gain an advantage for Russian forces on the front lines such as the Syrian battlefield and the border with Europe," the C4ADS report said.
