NEWS
#Kremlin-loyal troops attacked Krasnohorivka with heavy artillery last night, also hitting the town's operating hospital.
Comments coming from a current Donbass mercenary leader.....
Khodakovsky warlord: If in august 2014 Russia would not had intervene and wouldn't have helped, we would have lost in 2-3 weeks.
He went on..if there were not 100K Russian troops behind us we would be rolled over by the UAF.....
NEWS
#Kremlin-loyal troops attacked Krasnohorivka with heavy artillery last night, also hitting the town's operating hospital.
How 2000 RU FSB special forces in the occupied Crimea trained to capture Ukrainian objects
Video
https://youtu.be/vsM2HZqQMd8
Russian Electronic Warfare in Ukraine: Between Real and Imaginable
Jamestown Foundation: https://jamestown.org/program/russia...al-imaginable/
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 71
By: Sergey Sukhankin
The outbreak of war in the Donbas region (April 2014) turned Ukraine into one of the main targets of Russian information warfare, information-psychological operations, as well as cyberattacks and electronic warfare. Within the past three years, Ukraine has been subjected to no less than 7,000 cyberattacks. Ukrainian cyber expert Sergey Radkevych recently claimed that “Ukraine is in a state of cyber war with Russia” and that Russian cyber activities pose an existential threat to Ukraine’s national security (Sprotyv.info, May 5).
Furthermore, military clashes in Donbas have once again demonstrated that Russian military strategists and experts believe Electronic Warfare (EW) has become the backbone of “warfare of the future.” Western sources have claimed that from December 2015, Russia started to act much more decisively aiming to “achieve kinetic effects by delivering severe blows to Ukrainian critical infrastructure” (Cna.org, March 2017). Namely, these activities included damaging/destroying command-and-control networks through jamming radio communications, hampering the work of radar systems, and muting GPS signals. The main obstacle, however, was in the lack of concrete proof and factual data pertaining to tools, gadgets and other means used by the Russians while waging EW against Ukraine. But thanks to independent investigations conducted by Ukrainian activists and cyber specialists, it is now possible to speak about Russian involvement in EW against Ukraine as an undisputed fact. And the data presented by the Ukrainians illuminates many points of ambiguity regarding Russia’s use of EW in Donbas.
In this regard, it is possible to identify six noticeable means Russia has employed EW during the course of 2014–2017 (Informnapalm.org, May 2, 2016):
- The RB-341В “Leer-3” complex is designed for jamming GSM (cellular) signals with the support of Orlan-10 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and transmitting information. These up-to-date weapons systems were spotted near the city of Donetsk in May 2016.
- The RB-301B “Borisoglebsk-2” complex is one of the most advanced systems of electronic suppression. It is designed for radio intelligence and jamming of HF/UHF (both terrestrial and aircraft) radio channels as well as mobile terminals and trunked radios at the tactical and operational-tactical command levels. It was introduced to the Russian armed forces in 2013 (even though it was created in 2009), when the first units were deployed to the territory of the Southern Military District (SMD). Later it was spotted in 2015 in the occupied Ukrainian city of Luhansk. Also, complexes of this type frequently appear near the Anti-Terrorism Operation (ATO—the Ukrainian military’s term for its armed activities against Russia-backed separatist forces) zone. Some sources have claimed that this complex played a decisive role in the Battle of Debaltseve (January 2015), one of the heaviest defeats suffered by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to date.
- The R-934UM automated jamming station was first spotted near Luhansk in 2015, where it was working together with an F-330KMA command unit. Previously, this station appeared near the eastern Ukrainian cities of Horlivka and Makiivka. Russian sources also admitted that this station “has been successfully employed in local military conflicts,” but did not elaborate further (Protek-vrn.ru, accessed May 24).
- Between 2015 and 2016, the R-330Zh “Zhitel” automated jamming station was spotted in Horlivka, Makiivka and Zaytsevo. This system is deployed with an infantry brigade based in the SMD (on the territory of Chechnya). This equipment may have been used by separatist forces near Debaltseve in 2015 as well.
- The R-381T2 UHF radio monitoring station (R-381T “Taran” complex) and “Torn” radio intelligence complexes were observed with joint Russian-separatist forces in 2015 near Donetsk International Airport.
- Finally, the PSNR-8 Kredo-M1 (1L120) portable ground reconnaissance station is designed to detect moving targets on the ground or on the water and to support artillery fire at any time of day, regardless of the season. Importantly, this system can also be used in conditions of low visibility. It has been spotted on the territory of Luhansk oblast (Blahodatne, Olhynka, Buhas and Volnovakha).
All in all, according to Ukrainian sources, by March 22, 2017, the Russia-backed separatists received 43 pieces of modern EW equipment, which were used against the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donbas region/ATO area (Begemot.media, March 26).
In the meantime, Ukrainian specialists (“Armiya SOS”) were able to intercept signals from “the newest electronic warfare (EW) stations of the Russian Air Force” located in Crimea (Cape Tarkhankut) (Informnapalm.org, April 11). This was done by employing the so-called HackRF One gadget—a software defined radio for transmission/reception of radio signals in the range of 1 megahertz–6 gigahertz). The result of this investigation (conducted in March 2017) is a revelation. It suggests the presence in Crimea of Mi-8MTPR-1 helicopters equipped with Rychag-AV jamming stations, making these aircraft formidable weapons for EW operations. One of the main ways these systems have been employed by Russia has been to deal with counter-air defense systems and complexes by reducing their effectiveness though muting and jamming their radio signals. Results of Ukraine’s investigation from this past March show that, in 2016, the Russian side deployed helicopters of this type on the territories of both the SMD and the Western Military District (WMD).
All this leads to the following conclusions:
First, the impressive capabilities of Ukrainian hackers and open-source-intelligence volunteers in disclosing Russian EW have not yet been met with any significant level of support from the Ukrainian government. Traditional problems such as bureaucracy, red tape and a slow pace of decision-making do not allow the government to rapidly apply the results of these investigations to the needs of the Armed Forces and Ukrainian cyber security. This drastically reduces the potential of the Ukrainian military and convinces the Russian side of its unconditional superiority.
Second, even though Russian capabilities in the domain of EW have grown exponentially since 2014, they still cannot deliver total invulnerability. The most recent events in Syria (the United States’ April 7 cruise missile strike on al-Shayrat Airbase—see EDM, April 10) and the fact that Ukraine managed to intercept Russian signals in Crimea suggest that the actual might of Russian EW capabilities is lower than frequently portrayed in the West.
Finally, Crimea as well as Kaliningrad oblast—as two heavily militarized anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) “bubbles”—together constitute key links in Russia’s growing “arc of counter-containment” (see EDM, January 18). And these areas could increasingly be used by the Kremlin as “cyber bastions” as well.
61 attacks on Ukrainian positions yesterday, 2 Ukrainian soldiers WIA
Latitude 67N SIGINT @Sigint67n
RuAF strategic AF sw net up with voice traffic, multiple units
W marker and mission traffic - Tu95/160?
You have to love articles that do not "get it"....the US had until 1993 a growing and aggressive CEWI capability with a number of new pieces of equipment which did now what the Russians have recently deployed BUT in 1993 not in 2017. The Army doctrine was there to fight an aggressive EW war inside LandAir Battle which was the counter to the Warsaw Pact in say 1989 to 1990.Originally Posted by Azor
The Army had as well a CEWI training center located at Ft. Devens and had built for literally millions of dollars a complete CEWI equipment testing facility that allowed the equipment to be powered up, used in real life and not distrub commerical signals and not be seen by Soviet satellites..then when the base deactivated in 1994 all of this facility was simple stripped out and stored and or sold off as scrap metal ......
A number of the these CEWI BNs were in fact deployed in Desert Storm to jam and disrupt Saddams military and they functioned extremely well....
Then in about 1993 there was a decision and the Army stood up, equipped and manned new Reserve CEWI BNs...as the CEWI mission was moved from Active Army MI to the Reserve Army MI units....
THEN just as suddenly the Army decided based on the Bush peace dividend from the Desert Storm era and no foreseeable Russian threat to RIF the military in size and basically disbanded all CEWI capacity and it was never there since then....literally gone overnight.
At the time of the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 the US Army had roughly a total of 80 odd EW officers BUT focused mainly on the counter IED EW side of things...jamming RC IEDs mainly.....
For the counter IED fight in Iraq and later AFG especially in 2006 the US Army had to use Naval EWO officers from the carriers to deploy with US Army units into Iraq until the Army could train in a 6 weeks shake and bake EW course EW officers to replace them.
AND then we see what we see in eastern Ukraine and the US Army now playing catch up and learning how to manuever troops and equipment in complete radio silence and or in a total EW environment regardless of what the Russians use or UAVs being jammed and downed and satcom being disrupted etc....
Right now we are on the losing side of EW..and no new equipment is scheduled for deployment until around 2019...and or maybe 2020..
Nowhere in the article is this story........
So even if the Russians have half of what we think they have it is still more than what we have..simple as that....and when it comes to using UAVs inconjunction with artillery and recon...the Russians have now tons of combat experience and the US Army is just starting to relearn that skill set...
BTW..how do I know of this..I was involved in building the CEWI doctrine, training the personnel to doctrinal standards and then deploying the CEWI BNs...and equipment.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 05-27-2017 at 10:58 AM.
Militants rained 152mm shells on Ukraine troops near Avdiyivka for 40 minutes Friday – ATO HQ
2,000 Russian Special Forces in #Crimea exercise to seize Ukrainian property
https://informnapalm.org/en/2-000-ru...operty-video/#
49 attacks on Ukrainian positions yesterday, 8 soldiers were wounded
Krasnhorivka: heavy damage in the town after Russian artillery attack
VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmQVNX01MgY#
Syrian tactic now being used in Ukraine.....practiced by Russian although using artillery in Ukraine not their AF.....
80% of those assigned to the OSCE SMM as so call neutral observers are really Russian military personnel....
Olga Skripovska, a chairman of the #Donetsk Reg Office of @OSCE_SMM to #Ukraine, at the terrorists' 9th May parade in occupied Donetsk...
MORE Russian KIAs being shipped back to Russia after this latest round of heavy fighting.....
06:40 #Donetsk: a Gazel marked 'Cargo 200', # plate 041-98 EA, escorted by Vaz-2121 w/RU # plates went tow/#Makiivka ignoring traffic lights
It is just not only the CEWI side that has problems.....this system was a gold mine for defense contractors just as the coming EW will be.....
The Army’s chief of staff told lawmakers Thursday he’s not convinced the service’s troubled Warfighter Information Network-Tactical will survive the rigors of combat.
WIN-T was part of the Army’s Future Combat Systems effort in 2003. After FCS was canceled in 2009, the service tried to salvage the program as part of an effort to create secure battlefield communications for mounted forces on the move — an effort led by General Dynamics Corp. and that has cost about $6 billion.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, voiced his concerns about WIN-T to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley at a May 25 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
“I have seen credible reports that WIN-T has ineffective line-of-sight communications,” Cotton said. “It is too fragile to survive in a contested environment and has an electromagnetic signature so loud that it practically would call for enemy artillery on the top of its user’s heads.
“Have you seen similar reports?” Cotton asked the general.
Milley told Cotton that “we share the same concerns” and that he is leading “a rigorous, thorough and painful review of the entire communications, electromagnetic capability of the U.S. Army,” including WIN-T.
“Frankly, my concern is these systems may or may not work in the conditions of combat that I envision in the future,” he said, citing concerns that WIN-T is unable to operate on the move or in large, complex urban areas.
“And there is a whole series of other things, and it is fragile and it is vulnerable, so we are taking a very, very deep, hard, wide look.”
The review will likely take another four to six weeks to complete, Milley said.
Milley said he recently received a letter from the “House with 176 signatures on it and a letter from the Senate with several signatures on it asking me to accelerate that program.”
“I am not going to accelerate it until I am convinced it will work in combat against the enemies of our country that may be coming in the future,” he said.
Cotton, along with Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, pointed to WIN-T’s $6 billion price tag over the past decade and said it’s time for the Army to make a final decision on the system’s future.
“If the program is not working, it doesn’t seem that we should be accelerating more money into it until we can get it to work or find a replacement,” Cotton said.
20:10 [#Avdiivka]: #Promka - tough battle
Heavy ongoing shellings and ground attack.....
To Outlaw 09 RE: Ukraine and EMW
Perhaps those who don’t fully read articles shouldn’t make such hasty judgments? Just a thought…
Sukhankin only referred to U.S. EM warfare capabilities with regard to the recent TLAM strike on Shayrat, and it was tangential to his specific points.
As for U.S. capabilities, much of the Army’s EMW role has been taken over by the Air Force, particularly given the upgrades to the F-22, the EMW mission given to the F-35. The U.S. was certainly not ignoring this aspect of warfare as the entire C4ISR and precision-strike complexes rely upon its domination. Do you think that Boeing's CHAMP missile is the only beast in the woods? Did you miss the work by the DOD’s Strategic Capabilities Office and the Army’s Rapid Capabilities Office, which has equipped U.S. Army units in Europe with new EMW equipment?
I appreciate that you have first-hand experience of the hollowing out created by the “peace dividend” and the “Iraq First” policy of the Bush Administration, but EM-cyberwarfare is quickly becoming as secretive and cutting edge a capability as 5th Generation aircraft, the LRASM/LRSO family of missiles, submarine acoustics, etc. If Russia can play catch-up in a few years in the midst of foreign adventures and budgetary constraints, so too can the U.S., if the popular narrative of the U.S. being behind in this area is true, which I don’t agree with. The U.S. has a long history of playing the underdog in order to: (a) preserve secrecy in an open and democratic society; (b) possibly confuse adversaries and rivals; and (c) ensure adequate funding from Congress.
The Third Offset is not something that can be rolled out from a hangar for a big reveal, as the B-2 was. It will be largely invisible and only the enemy, when they are deaf, dumb and blind, will feel its effects.
You still do not "get it"...the US Army does not even have a weak EW ability and yes the AF flies but it cannot constantly park aircraft over a ground manuever unit in order to provide a constant 24 X 7 EW protection....
Finally believe me when I say there is none to a little EW ability inside a US BCT ...
Same goes for ground air defense abilities at low flying attack targets...is the Army going to wait for some USAF aircraft to arrive to down a Mi24????
The US military is not hiding anything as it got basically out of and rid of EW equipment, manning and officers in the 90s and that has remained that way since.
Why is it so hard to envision that the US military is actually behind in something????
The F35 EW mission you so talk about is not for ground support but for SEAD....simple as that..there has been some talk about bringing back the A6s again for that mission set as they did in VN.....as the A6 is cheaper and can loiter longer.
ARE you trying to sell me that a F35 will loiter for hours over ground troops??
Last time I checked the only loiter ac the AF has for that type of mission is the A10 but it is certainly not an EW ac......
BUT WAIT there are a few Broncos left in service but again not an EW ac...
Seems this year target is Krasnohorivka, frontline W-NW of Donetsk is very active few nights in a row.
Though not many options: Russia needs "limited engagement", and any significant change of map could trigger "full-scale engagement".
Many reports/rumors of coming escalation in Eastern Ukraine - with new Rus. forces coming(Dokuchaevsk,Donetsk), nothing unusual but "terror attacks media aftermath" could be used to attempt new Maryinka-style offensive(same 27 May-5 June)
Russian senator: Macron inviting Putin to Paris 2day signals EU’s rejection of attempts to isolate Russia. “Obama’s policy has quietly died"
Wishful thinking by this Russian as Marcon for the first time and as a member of Normandy 4....e called the "Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine" ...a "Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine"...first western country to actually state that....
Ukraine's Defense Ministry says 98 soldiers were killed & 800 wounded in Donbas in 2017.
This is why there's growing European discussion of an extreme option to replace US commitments: a Euro nukes program
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/w...982588&gwt=pay
Merkel's comment didn't come out of nowhere. Germans have spent months contemplating – and preparing for – a break with the US.
One sr German official really stressed this: Our closest ally is not just going away, but may turn its power against us. Think about that.
Their fear wasn't just that Trump would be an unreliable ally, but that his attacks on the EU and NATO would make the US a threat to Europe.
The Germans really fear Europe will fall apart w/o the US. But they saw Trump as a potential threat to their most core national interests.
They were quite open about their plan: appease Trump and proceed normally. But quietly prepare a Plan B in case that fails. We may be there.
New NATO motto: Keep the Americans out, the Russians in, and the Germans up.
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