Russian Missile Defences Are a Game-Changer in Syria - Even Pentagon Reps are Forced to Admit It
For now, ending the war in Syria is a dream for most Syrians, who are well aware of who is fueling it from outside. Instead of supporting a peaceful solution for Syria, Americans complain that Russians are interfering with their presence in the Arab Republic. To be specific, Russia allegedly creates obstacles for them. On NBC, the Russian Armed Forces were accused of jamming their Western partners' drones. Allegedly, they started doing this several weeks ago, and have only recently upped their jamming efforts around Eastern Ghouta.
Their conclusion? Apparently, Russia is doing everything to hide the evidence of the chemical attack in the Arab Republic. They jam reconnaissance drones so that nothing can be photographed or recorded. Why are they so sure about these unproven chemical attacks? Why would Russia hide something that never happened to begin with? They are right about one thing: Russian troops really can jam drones and more.
Artyom Potemin will report about the latest tech.
They can also neutralize missiles, not just drones. Even Americans themselves admit that our air-defense systems are among the best in the world. Now, they also praise our electronic warfare capabilities. A whole complex of military equipment is responsible for peaceful skies over Russian soldiers in Syria. Obviously, Moscow doesn't show its hand, but the US shouldn't act surprised every time they bump into an invisible wall. It would be odd if it weren't there.
Alexey Leonkov, a military expert: "They probably mean the Borisoglebsk-2 system, which works on multiple communication channels, and one of its features is GPS signal jamming. If you use a device that has a very powerful broadband signal, it will jam communications between a drone and satellites. Then, the drone will search for the next available channel that can give it maneuvering commands. If you provide that channel, you can command the drone to land".
The fact that electronic warfare is a decisive factor in modern warfare became clear during the Russo-Georgian War of 2008. Russian engineers were ordered to fix any bugs, and it looks like they did it.
Boris Rozhin, an expert at the Center of Military-Political Journalism: "For the past 10 years, certain efforts were made to overcome this gap. In a certain sense, this gap has been overcome, and now the US experts' reports on evaluating Russia's military potential say that Russia has achieved significant results in electronic warfare technology, which includes anti-drone weapon systems".
Let's go back to 2011. Iranian experts force-landed a classified US RQ-170 Sentinel drone. The operation's details weren't made public, but they were probably able to intercept it with the help of a Russian Krasukha EW system, which had been recently delivered to the Islamic Republic. Washington tried to make excuses, saying that the drone simply ran out of fuel. They demanded that their property be returned to them. Tehran refused to do it and said they were able to hack the drone and even reverse engineer it. Today, the lead arsenal of US drones in Syria consists mostly of Predator and Reaper strike drones. There's also the Shadow recon drone and the pride of US engineering—the Global Hawk. Although, the US probably won't send the latter to the Arab Republic. That little birdie is worth almost $150,000,000.
Dmitry Rodionov, the Geopolitical Research Center Director: "They're logically inconsistent. They say their military is the strongest, and their weapons are the best. Then, if Russian air-defense systems happen to shoot down their missiles, if Russian electronic warfare equipment detects their drones, it doesn't mean they have poor-quality equipment, it means that Russia is carrying out some deliberately evil plans against the West".
The US' complains are understandable but unjustifiable. Electronic warfare is constantly used in the military, not just in some cases. However, they are only activated when they detect a foreign aircraft. By the way, American drones have no legal cause to even patrol Syrian territory.
Alexey Leonkov, a military expert: "Americans were told which zones they must stay away from. There was a lot of provocation that involved drones, especially drone strikes that would hit Syrian Army soldiers. Such incidents weren't made public, of course, but they happened constantly".
It looks like there will be fewer of such incidents from now on. Not because the so-called US-led coalition lost interest in spying, but because they can no longer sneak by undetected. During an interview with NBC, Pentagon reps stated that they support proper defense measures to ensure the safety of manned as well as unmanned aircraft. For now, the best thing for them to do is to keep the drones out.
That was Artyom Potemin about the Russian military's electronic warfare capabilities.