How do you like this, Elon Musk? Lisichansk Cossacks learned to fight Starlink

Photo: Press service of the Russian Defense Ministry/TASS

Military correspondent Yevgeny Lisitsyn told on his Telegram channel how the 6th Guards Lisichansk Cossack Brigade, named after Ataman Platov, is fighting Ukrainian UAVs heading north. He also showed photographs and videos of downed drones.

If we take the success of the Cossack Guards as an example, it can be assumed that a long-awaited turning point is occurring in the drone war. Modern Russian electronic warfare equipment and anti-drone weapons make it possible to shoot down not only civilian Mavics with expensive modifications such as Matrice or high-speed FPV drones, but also Fury winged military drones flying at high altitudes and huge distances – up to 90 kilometers.

There are also ways to neutralize the heavy Baba Yaga UAV, which carries up to 6 82mm high-explosive fragmentation mines at a distance of up to 12 km. The peculiarity of this UAV is that it does not use a radio signal, but is controlled by Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system. For a long time it was believed that it was almost impossible to land such a drone using electronic warfare and the only way was to wait until Baba Yaga descends to drop it and shoot it with a coaxial machine gun or a hunting shot. rifle. However, new electronic warfare systems are capable of intercepting or replacing the satellite signal, completely closing the sky to aircraft.

The New York Times writes about this and notes with alarm that such interference could pose a danger to planes whose routes pass beyond the Russian border. There was even a study in the United Kingdom that said cutting satellite signals for just five days would cost the country $6.3 billion. The article notes that Russia is jamming GPS signals to confuse Ukrainian drones. Ukraine is trying to do the same, but, according to the newspaper, “lacks the same level of sophistication.”