Russia ‘jamming signals’ at RAF Cyprus base

[Lyneham Lad]

Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere. Article in The Times today. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f99fe390-8831-11eb-bb21-db0220819036?shareToken=e596f3bbca7d6b3cdcd7419a2d9e8f3f)
Russia is understood to have repeatedly tried to jam signals in an act of electronic warfare against RAF aircraft taking off from Cyprus.

Military intelligence sources said a “hostile state” had regularly attempted to interfere with satellite communications of the A400M transport aircraft leaving RAF Akrotiri while troops were on board.

The attacks could have prevented the pilot from knowing where the aircraft was or the direction it was flying in and potentially resulted in casualties. None of the attempts was successful. The only two hostile states close enough to try to jam the signals were Syria and Russia, with Russia (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/topic/russia?page=1) understood to be the only country capable of doing so.


A military intelligence source told The Times: “Russia has been trying to jam planes taking off, which is all part of its sub-threshold activity.” Sub-threshold activity is where armed conflict is avoided but there is confrontation.

The source added: “This is an example of another state being hostile and reckless for no apparent reason. These are transport aircraft bringing in spare parts. It’s not like they are fighter jets.”

The global positioning system is a radio-navigation system that consists of satellites in orbit and a network of ground stations used for monitoring.

On Monday the “defence command” paper is due to be published, setting out cuts and investments to the military. This will include a plan for the military to operate more inside the “grey zone” between peace and war and attach a “cost” to such nefarious activity by adversaries. A defence source said: “This is about the resetting of the overt world of peace and war and moving to a more fluid world where our adversaries are.”

It is widely expected that all 14 C-130J Hercules aircraft, favoured by the SAS, will be grounded and the larger Airbus A400M will be used to convey troops.

Lieutenant-General Jim Hockenhull, chief of defence intelligence, said: “The future battlefield will not be defined by lines on maps. We will likely be confronted by state and non-state actors who will employ brinkmanship, threshold warfare, terrorism, proxies, coercion and economic warfare.” He said that the military would adapt its approach and “target our most vulnerable areas”.


There are concerns that Russia is exploring ways to disrupt other satellite communications, as well as building up anti-satellite space weapons. In July, the UK and US accused Russia of testing a weapon-like projectile in space that could be used to target satellites.

A defence source said: “Our space assets can be held at risk due to the development of anti-satellite weapons. If you want to disrupt financial transactions you just need to wipe out a satellite.”

Mercenary army growing
Russia has a global army of mercenaries that is “growing in influence” in poorer states, military chiefs believe (Larisa Brown writes). Intelligence has identified 12 groups that are secretly working for Moscow abroad. The shadowy Wagner group is one trying to further Russia’s aims.

Private contractors give the Kremlin a degree of deniability and make it difficult for the UK to respond to.

Britain believes that Russia has given Wagner fighter jets, transport planes and air defence missiles. A defence source said: “Russia can basically do what it likes without being held to account.”

The Russian government denies any involvement in Wagner.

[Hot 'n' High]

Not sure if this has been mentioned elsewhere. Article in The Times today. (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f99fe390-8831-11eb-bb21-db0220819036?shareToken=e596f3bbca7d6b3cdcd7419a2d9e8f3f)

"Private contractors give the Kremlin a degree of deniability and make it difficult for the UK to respond to. Britain believes that Russia has given Wagner fighter jets, transport planes and air defence missiles. A defence source said: “Russia can basically do what it likes without being held to account". The Russian government denies any involvement in Wagner." (My bold)

Kremlin SOP! To be fair, others have done the same in the past - the Contras in Nicaragua anyone? With Moscow, this has also been going on for decades - well back into the good old Soviet days. What a world we live in!

[etudiant]

Russia was officially tagged as hostile by Britain and the US President has formally called the Russian President 'a killer'.
Surely that gives Russia all the freedom it might want to be as unhelpful as it could be.

[Video Mixdown]

Russia was officially tagged as hostile by Britain and the US President has formally called the Russian President 'a killer'.
Surely that gives Russia all the freedom it might want to be as unhelpful as it could be.
Putin sent his goons to our country to commit murder using nerve gas. I think 'hostile' is quite a mild description.

[Two's in]

"Private contractors give the Kremlin a degree of deniability and make it difficult for the UK to respond to. ..Kremlin SOP! To be fair, others have done the same in the past - the Contras in Nicaragua anyone? With Moscow, this has also been going on for decades - well back into the good old Soviet days. What a world we live in!

If you haven't heard of Erik Prince and Blackwater, you might be unaware that the US leads the field in unaccountable, untraceable private armies working for the Government.

P.S. So the Russians doing what they have been doing since the Cold War started - real news flash stuff. Somebody should be giving them an Industry award for providing field test conditions for COMSEC and Tempest evaluation.

[MPN11]

... and career development opportunities for WSOs who can use a sextant?

Although an early embracer of IT both at work and at home in the late 80s, the almost total dependence on hi-tech I find disconcerting. Almost every week I now find myself under some for of pressure to buy a 5G smartphone that I really don’t need ... and yet it’s becoming almost SOP for Travel (remember that?), Banking and Health/C-19 purposes.

[speedrestriction]

It has been going on for several years at this stage. Not a big navigation issue, there is enough conventional navaid coverage to maintain accurate navigation certainly to RNP1.

[Not_a_boffin]

Putin sent his goons to our country to commit murder using a persistent nerve agent - aka a WMD. I think 'hostile' is quite a mild description.

Fixed. Free of charge. Whether the consequence is sufficient to deter a repeat, remains to be seen.

[etudiant]

Given that the purported target has survived, with him and his daughter, who flew in from Russia, now held incommunicado by HMG, I frankly don't believe a word of the 'official' story.

[tubby linton]

It has been going on for several years at this stage. Not a big navigation issue, there is enough conventional navaid coverage to maintain accurate navigation certainly to RNP1.
Navaids in Northern Cyprus (the Turkish bit) are notoriously unreliable. Flying an aircraft with only VOR -DME updating to the IRS into Paphos a number of years ago resulted in a small map shift 1-2nm as the kit was picking up the poor navaids in the North such as Ercan. They can be deselected through the FMS before entering the area if you are aware of the problem.

[cynicalint]

Comments under the article in the Telegraph are amusing, alarming, informative, ignorant and conspiratorial in equal measure!

[Video Mixdown]

Given that the purported target has survived, with him and his daughter, who flew in from Russia, now held incommunicado by HMG, I frankly don't believe a word of the 'official' story.
​​​​​​Your personal delusions are your problem.

[etudiant]

​​​​​​Your personal delusions are your problem.
Delusions are hard to shake when they are facts.

[27/09]

Given that the purported target has survived, with him and his daughter, who flew in from Russia, now held incommunicado by HMG, I frankly don't believe a word of the 'official' story.
What do you believe?

There were several news articles about 18 months ago that they had been given new identities and had relocated overseas from the UK.

Of course you may prefer to believe the Scoop article that says they were executed by the British.

[cynicalint]

Etudient,
"Given that the purported target has survived, with him and his daughter, who flew in from Russia, now held incommunicado by HMG, I frankly don't believe a word of the 'official' story."
You have no idea what the 'purported target' was! You have no idea what the ROE are. You have no idea what the concrete military advantage of the strike was. You have no idea of the level of military or political clearance of the strike was. You have no idea of the clearance process of hitting the target is. In fact, you have no idea at all, just like the rest of us not involved with the strike. Whether you believe the 'official story' is irrelevant. I've been retired from the targeting world for 10 years now and would never presume to know what is happening, but your inputs reveal a conspiracy theorist at work.

[FantomZorbin]

cynicalint
Ahh but ... I bet the person knows the height of the spire on Salisbury Cathedral :E

[Ewan Whosearmy]

Etudiant. Do you also disbelieve the Bellingcat analysis?

https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/podcasts/2020/06/16/bellingchat-episode-3-hunting-the-the-salisbury-poisonings-suspects/

[AnglianAV8R]

Given that the purported target has survived, with him and his daughter, who flew in from Russia, now held incommunicado by HMG, I frankly don't believe a word of the 'official' story.

A voice in the wilderness.

[KiloB]

Russia may of course be aware of aspects of the Salisbury Poisoning it wouldn’t want publicised.

In Sept 2018 Russia finally ‘gave the finger’ to the international community regarding the poisoning, in a number of political speeches and press releases. Strangely, the following month (October 2018) Russia suffered a strange accident when a floating dock sank, causing a crane to fall on the flight deck of their one and only Carrier, causing severe damage!

So either either karma works really, really well, or is is possible that the SBS were out and about during October that year? Obviously we will never know, but the use of a nerve agent against the population of another sovereign nation surely called for some level of active response.

[Hot 'n' High]

Russia was officially tagged as hostile by Britain and the US President has formally called the Russian President 'a killer'.
Surely that gives Russia all the freedom it might want to be as unhelpful as it could be.

Russia? An excuse to be unhelpful? Think you're getting your "chickens" and "eggs" the wrong way round! I suspect that the closest we ever came to the idea of Russia being helpful (in the past 100 years or more) was with Gorbachev. History tells us what happened there. WW II also saw "co-operation" ... but more as a means to an end for Stalin in his quest to eject the Germans from Russia.

Since Gorby & Yeltsin, Russia has stepped back, not into the old Soviet ways - but into more of a "sovereign democracy" which is slightly less benign than it sounds. Interestingly, both Stalin and Putin had/have strong Russian nationalism as a core concept - and nothing wrong with that. Pride in the Russian nation and people etc. However, they both used/use peculiar ways of holding on to power - it is those "methodologies" which have caused so much controversy.

Of course Putin is mad with Biden as Biden "says it as he sees it". It was quite useful to Putin to have Trump in the Whitehouse. Given the way the Trump "empire" has been financed Trump was always going to be muted in any criticism of Putin - a classic case of "entrapment" which, ironically, was more by accident than design! Trump sort of just fell into it decades ago as his business empire was struggling financially and he was grasping at straws just to survive!!!

So, belatedly, returning to the Thread, this jamming is just one way of expressing "Russian nationalism" - of demonstrating that Russia is "great again". I hardly think the jamming and Putin's feelings towards Biden are related - the former would have happened anyway. Who knows what Putin will do re Biden. This could be a real "popcorn" moment which, hopefully, will not see anything daft being perpetrated. The odds are not good I suspect......

[Hot 'n' High]

If you haven't heard of Erik Prince and Blackwater, you might be unaware that the US leads the field in unaccountable, untraceable private armies working for the Government.

P.S. So the Russians doing what they have been doing since the Cold War started - real news flash stuff. Somebody should be giving them an Industry award for providing field test conditions for COMSEC and Tempest evaluation.

Agreed! Hence my "Contras" comment! I guess the topic for the discussion would be how "mainstream" such links by Governments to such organisations are? How much do such links form part of "official daily State administration" and who it's supposed to help? I suspect even the assembled wisdom of the all PPRuNers, if harnessed as one, could not answer that. So much is hidden - on both sides. And the motives so nebulous!

And, re the Thread Topic, as you suggest, the Russians are probably giving the systems a far better workout than any Tempest Test van ever did! It was always an easy (for that, read "slow") day when the van appeared and I was told to help out. Fine if it was sunny and one could take it easy on the grass while the Team did their stuff ........ Happy daze! :ok:

[hunterboy]

Bearing in mind us civvies have been operating in the Eastern Med through such jamming over the last few years, I had assumed that the UK military had better kit and SoP’s to operate in such an environment?

[Easy Street]

Bearing in mind us civvies have been operating in the Eastern Med through such jamming over the last few years, I had assumed that the UK military had better kit and SoP’s to operate in such an environment?

Where in the article does it say that the jamming had any impact on operations? :confused::hmm: Of course someone will say it 'could' cause an accident, either the MOD trying to make the beastly Russians look reckless or the journalist trying to sensationalise the story.

[skygeek]

So Russians facilitate a proper field testing of the NATO equipment, SOPs and pilot skills? Free-of-charge? Somehow if that was really the case I sure think that while making a big stink out of it publicly NATO hopes that they do carry on as ultimately such conditions only will improve their systems in the long run. Non-story.

[Well Travelled Nav]

This is hardly news as there has been a Permanent NOTAM advising of GPS signal interruptions in Nicosia FIR for a while now and pilots should be expecting it and have alternate means of navigation available.

Latest NOTAM below:

A0211/20 - GPS SIGNAL INTERRUPTIONS HAVE BEEN REPORTED WITHIN NICOSIA FIR.
PILOTS ARE REQUESTED TO PROMPTLY REPORT TO ATC ANY GPS SIGNAL
INTERRUPTION EXPERIENCED. 11 FEB 12:30 2020 UNTIL PERM. CREATED: 11 FEB 12:34
2020

[racedo]

Etudiant. Do you also disbelieve the Bellingcat analysis?

https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/podcasts/2020/06/16/bellingchat-episode-3-hunting-the-the-salisbury-poisonings-suspects/

Quoting Bellendcat is akin to quoting wikipedia, ever Foreign Office has highlighted the willingess they have to write the story to suit who is writing the cheque.

[racedo]

Putin sent his goons to our country to commit murder using nerve gas. I think 'hostile' is quite a mild description.

Right.

At the same time we should believe the US claim, Russian media spending <$100k on Twitter somehow influenced US elections in 2016 where as US policing and intelligence agencies spending $1 billion and having the best software in the world couldn't prevent this. HRC backers who spent $100M used the wrong people.

Just like the claimed poisoning on useful idiot Navalny, Russia, just like western countrys is more than capable of ensuring someone dies. Dr David Kelly seems strangely forgotten on the 18th Anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

[etudiant]

Etudiant. Do you also disbelieve the Bellingcat analysis?

https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/podcasts/2020/06/16/bellingchat-episode-3-hunting-the-the-salisbury-poisonings-suspects/

Entirely.
My point is that the Russian record is unequivocal, when they want someone killed, they kill them, irrespective of the collateral damage.
This was not a Russian operation.

[Machinbird]

My intelligence sources indicate that in addition to the missile strikes against the extensive US/Turkish/Israeli oil theft operations in Northern Syria, a war is starting to flare up in Eastern Ukraine/Donbass region. At the same time, there are heavy NATO exercises starting up in the Black Sea region.
The Russians might understandably be be a bit concerned about the increasing buildup of military forces in their vicinity and might act to harass military movements.
Of particular concern to me is that these activities have received minimal to no publicity here in the U.S.
I suggest that those operating in the Eastern Med and Black Sea region be prepared for the unexpected.

[Bob Viking]

I neither know nor really care who attempted to kill the Skripals. I have not read too much about it other than the reports in the news. I had certainly not heard of the bellingcat report.

I find your viewpoint, and others like it, fascinating though.

Assuming you only have access to information freely available on the internet (if you are a government agent with Top Secret clearance this is a strange conduit for your intelligence updates) you seem very adamant that you know better than everyone else.

You may well be correct and I will admit that anything involving the Russian government (and indeed any government) should be viewed with skepticism. However, making definitive statements when you are not in possession of all the facts can appear a little arrogant to say the least.

There is nothing to stop you stating your beliefs but the way you present them can reflect upon the way people view you.

BV

[racedo]

There is nothing to stop you stating your beliefs but the way you present them can reflect upon the way people view you.
BV

BV - That applies to everybody here. Anybody taking a viewpoint that is not on message, i.e. questioning anything that western media are pushing as a narrative, is automatically targeted as being in pay of X Govt and a pseudo enemy. The fact that many people are questioning because they have experience of the long history of Govt lying.

I expect the same would have been on here in 2003 during the Iraq invasion. People happily jump on bandwagon now and saying it was wronga and if only we had known. Fact is people did and still went along with the narrative.

[racedo]

My intelligence sources indicate that in addition to the missile strikes against the extensive US/Turkish/Israeli oil theft operations in Northern Syria, a war is starting to flare up in Eastern Ukraine/Donbass region. At the same time, there are heavy NATO exercises starting up in the Black Sea region.


In 2016 Kiev supported HRC, they expected a build up of forces in Ukraine and a war. Biden had removed the questioning of corruption but Trump got impeached because he questioned it. Given Hunter's rewards then not surprising a war is being pushed but the Ukrainians are not playing ball as much as the US want. Kiev's ban on young men crossing the border to avoid conscription tells its own story.

Ukraine has not had a census in almost 20 years, the numbers would be scary because the claimed 41.5 million people are minimum 8 million less, Poland has 3-4 million, Germany 500k plus, Russia 1 million all since 2014. How do you fight a war when your own people leave rather than stay and fight to support more corruption and neo nazis.

I fully expect a replay of 2014 in Ukraine, Kiev will lose more territory and Russia will get sanctioned again.

[etudiant]

I neither know nor really care who attempted to kill the Skripals. I have not read too much about it other than the reports in the news. I had certainly not heard of the bellingcat report.

I find your viewpoint, and others like it, fascinating though.

Assuming you only have access to information freely available on the internet (if you are a government agent with Top Secret clearance this is a strange conduit for your intelligence updates) you seem very adamant that you know better than everyone else.

You may well be correct and I will admit that anything involving the Russian government (and indeed any government) should be viewed with skepticism. However, making definitive statements when you are not in possession of all the facts can appear a little arrogant to say the least.

There is nothing to stop you stating your beliefs but the way you present them can reflect upon the way people view you.

BV
Full disclosure, I have zero secret information, but thankfully the internet allows one to read dissident opinions from outside the Reuters bubble.
There is enough doubt raised imho by the reporting of John Helmer ( Dances With Bears (http://johnhelmer.net/) ) to suspect that the UK secret services have been 'economical with the truth' in this matter.
I admit that I do not believe that recognizing the monomaniacal focus the Russians appear to have on primary mission success is irrelevant to this discussion.
We had two alleged Russian murder attempts, on Skripal and on Navaly, yet both were botched by all evidence, whereas Litvinenko was murdered with no possibility of healing, but a trace back to Russia a mile wide...
To me, this smells.

[2Planks]

So have they taken over from the Limassol taxis who used to 'comms jam' the Troodos TADs in the 80s and 90s?

[highflyer40]

Delusions are hard to shake when they are facts.

When you start thinking your delusions are facts, that when the guys with the straight jacket start appearing.

[Flightmech]

Given that the purported target has survived, with him and his daughter, who flew in from Russia, now held incommunicado by HMG, I frankly don't believe a word of the 'official' story.

Somebody still died as a result.

[radeng]

GPS is nowhere near as reliable as was hoped. Jamming and spoofing are fairly common and there last but one issue of the IEEE Spectrum magazine ahd an article on how US government jamming and spoofing exercises has nearly caused accidents.

[212man]

...or the direction it was flying in....
They can jam E2Bs now?

[etudiant]

Somebody still died as a result.

Sadly true, but not anyone of even remote interest to Russia.
To me, that suggests some spy community cock up, rather than a Russian assassination attempt, which I would have expected to be more direct.
Skripal had been under the wing of the British spy community for quite a while, so he had zero intelligence value, plus he was quiet, so no publicity benefit.
To claim the Russians would mount a murder campaign against him and then screw it up seems a stretch, given their track record elsewhere.

[Momoe]

Etudiant,

I'll bite - why the reference to Russia regarding the death, seems counter-productive to your argument that Russia wasn't involved?

Also, if Skripal was of zero value and not 'broadcasting' what was the point? Hypothetically, let's extrapolate your viewpoint that UK security services were being economical with the truth, to what end?

I also have zero additional information, unless further information surfaces, Occams razor principle appears sound to me

[Dryce]

Entirely.
My point is that the Russian record is unequivocal, when they want someone killed, they kill them, irrespective of the collateral damage.
This was not a Russian operation.

Interesting court defence.
-It wasn't a perfect crime therefore it could not be my client because my client only commits perfect crimes.

[Asturias56]

I find it odd that people who suffer from the same type of poison all appear to be on the wrong side of the Russian authorities.................

To quote Auric Goldfinger "Once is happenstance, twice is co-incidence, the third time is enemy action"

[fitliker]

I find it odd that people who suffer from the same type of poison all appear to be on the wrong side of the Russian authorities.................

To quote Auric Goldfinger "Once is happenstance, twice is co-incidence, the third time is enemy action"

John LeCarre make a very similar quote in his book the Pigeon Tunnel .

[Video Mixdown]

Interesting court defence.
-It wasn't a perfect crime therefore it could not be my client because my client only commits perfect crimes.
I'm not sure where this narrative of Russian infallibility is coming from. They regularly make monumental c**k ups. Kursk, Chernobyl, Admiral Kuznetsov etc. etc.

[jeepjeep]

I'm not a signal tech, but I would expect that the G2 teams can triangulate the source(s) of the jamming. If they can't, the should throw some serious effort at the task. :suspect:

[etudiant]

Interesting court defence.
-It wasn't a perfect crime therefore it could not be my client because my client only commits perfect crimes.
Oh puleeze this is a silly argument.
I simply noted that Russian killings tend to use a maximum of force, usually way more than needed, just to make sure.
These Inspector Clouzeau type attacks, where the target is affected but not killed, are inconsistent with the usual Russian MO imho.
Obviously I could be quite wrong, maybe the Russian killers are usually that inept, but I've no comparable examples of incompetent killing by the Russian secret services.

[Ewan Whosearmy]

Is a direct confirmation from a member of the Russian security services also unlikely to change your mind about whether the Russians always kill when they mean to, Etudiant?

Navalny Says He Duped Russian Agent Into Confessing Poison Plot (rferl.org) (https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-agent-duped-navalny-poisoning/31011788.html)

[fitliker]

More likely the Turks are playing silly buggers using a bit of Russian kit to deflect away from the Turkish expansionistic Neo-Ottoman plans for the rest of the Mediterranean and Holy Land .

[speedrestriction]

Etudiant, I love your confidence in Russia’s apparatus of murder.

In my experience generally in life so far if there is an option to choose between “conspiracy” and “cock-up” when an operational outcome is sub-standard, then “cock-up” is invariably the reason.

The Russians use poison in cases where they fear blowback and need (scarcely) plausible deniability. For lower profile targets they are happy to use more direct and reliable means such as “falling” down stairwells or straightforward shooting. I don’t think that many western nations can take any moral high ground on the issue of assassinations, most have done fairly grubby things in the past.

The problem is that Putin sets the threshold for extrajudicial and (most seriously) extraterritorial killings far too low for a rules based world order. If everyone behaved as Russia currently do then it would be far more difficult to maintain global stability.

[etudiant]

Etudiant, I love your confidence in Russia’s apparatus of murder.

In my experience generally in life so far if there is an option to choose between “conspiracy” and “cock-up” when an operational outcome is sub-standard, then “cock-up” is invariably the reason.

The Russians use poison in cases where they fear blowback and need (scarcely) plausible deniability. For lower profile targets they are happy to use more direct and reliable means such as “falling” down stairwells or straightforward shooting. I don’t think that many western nations can take any moral high ground on the issue of assassinations, most have done fairly grubby things in the past.

The problem is that Putin sets the threshold for extrajudicial and (most seriously) extraterritorial killings far too low for a rules based world order. If everyone behaved as Russia currently do then it would be far more difficult to maintain global stability.


Agree that 'stuff happens' and is often more likely than conspiracy when plans go pear shaped.
The Navalny tapes that Ewan Whosearmy linked surely support that as well. They suggest more squeamishness on part of the Russians that I'd have expected, which resulted in mission failure..
Having noted that poor result, the Russians logically would become more blatantly goal focused, as the subsequent Navalny prison sentence indicates.
The 'legal process' worked for Khodorkovsky, so just replay the script, with the details changed as appropriate.

Might add that the Navalny tapes do strongly suggest that he got serious help from Western intelligence, faking a call as coming from within the FSB is not what most politicians are capable of.