Russian helicopters are thwarting Moscow's efforts to fool Ukraine using decoys by landing dummy fighter jets painted on concrete.
Satellite images of the Engels-2 air base in Saratov Oblast, about 400 km southeast of Moscow and 700 km from the Ukrainian border, in September 2023, reveal a number of Russian Aerospace Force Tu-95 Bears and Tu-160 Blackjacks. It is done. A bomber whose wings and part of the fuselage are covered with car tires. Another image, taken from the ground at an unknown airfield and circulated online about a week after Engels' image first appeared online, shows a Sukhoi Su-34 fullback bomber with tires mounted on the fuselage, wings and horizontal stabilizers. there is.
The reason for the presence of car tires on the top of an aircraft has been debated for a long time, and many theories have been formulated. According to Ukrainian sources, the tires were used as a kind of temporary protection against attacks by kamikaze drones. Others have suggested that the bombers were retired airframes used as decoys to avoid possible attacks from operational aircraft or to make radar targeting of Ukraine's long-range missiles more difficult (a theory supported by the fact that tire covers on Tu-95s have been observed ). Changed the bomber's synthetic aperture radar signal).
On September 10, 2023, the popular FighterBomber Telegram channel, which has close ties to Russian Aerospace Force crews, posted several new images depicting an anti-drone structure being deployed for testing purposes at an unspecified Russian airfield.
The above are just two “creative” methods that Russia appears to have deployed to mislead its deadly Ukraine attack drones.
But they weren't the only ones.
In addition to inflatable tanks and wooden rocket launchers, images captured by Planet Labs PBC in January 2024 and obtained from business insider It showed the silhouette of a fighter jet drawn on the runway of Mozdok Air Force Base in southeastern Russia. Similar decoys drawn between the summer and fall of 2023 were exposed on satellite images of Belbek, Gvardeyskoye and Krymsk Air Base.
The reasons for using these baits are always the same. Fooling Ukrainian drones that rely on primary cameras for image recognition of aircraft shapes
As Ukraine's long-range strike capabilities grew, the number of decoys at Russian air bases participating in the invasion of Ukraine also increased.
This thread shows several decoys that the Russian military once painted on air bases out of Kiev's reach. (1/8) pic.twitter.com/Yy68uZykRw
— Brady Africk (@bradyafrick) January 30, 2024
This tactic, which is not new, likely helped prevent some of the attacks in Ukraine, but appears to have been undermined by internal “threats” at some bases.
According to a UK Ministry of Defense Defense Intelligence Update dated April 2, 2024, Russian helicopters “still regularly land on painted decoy fighter silhouettes, completely undermining any attempts at deception.”
Latest defense intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 2 April 2024.
Learn more about Defense Intelligence's language usage: https://t.co/VLI1JhTxbL#StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/rGi9A7DqCR
— Department of Defense 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) April 2, 2024
Satellite images of the Kirovskoe base show: A Russian Ka-52 Alligator helicopter sits directly on top of the silhouette of a Su-30 jet. “This also reveals the actual combat order or aircraft strength of these air bases, which Russia may be attempting to obscure from the intelligence situation in Ukraine,” the UK Ministry of Defense said.