Russia likely sending decoy balloons over Ukraine: UK

Russia is likely deploying balloons over Ukraine to act as decoys to gather intelligence on the country’s defense systems and to coerce the military into using valuable missiles to shoot them down, the UK ministry said on Sunday. of the defense.

In an intelligence update posted on Twitter, the The British Ministry of Defense said balloons or “balloon-shaped objects” were spotted in the air over Ukraine last week – a clear change in tactics by the Russian military.

“It is likely that the balloons were Russian. They likely represent a new tactic by Russia to gain information on Ukrainian air defense systems and force the Ukrainians to expend a valuable stockpile of surface-to-air missiles and ammunition,” the alert reads.

The Defense Ministry said the Ukrainian military detected several balloons fitted with radar reflectors over kyiv on February 15 and shot down at least six of them.

More balloons were spotted over Dnipropetrovsk on February 12.

And on February 14, a “balloon-shaped” object forced the closure of Moldovan airspace for several hours.

“There is a realistic possibility that it was a Russian balloon that drifted from Ukrainian airspace,” the ministry said.

Colonel Margo Grosbert, head of the Estonian Defense Forces, said last week that it appeared Russia was using relatively cheap weather balloons to probe air defense systems and force the military to expend ammunition.

“It both wastes anti-aircraft weapons and exhausts crews. It also makes the anti-aircraft crews visible as a result of their actions because then you can see where the missiles are coming from,” he said.

Grosberg said the use of balloons was a new development in the war and wondered whether Russia had borrowed the idea from the Chinese, who sent a spy balloon over the United States earlier this month.

The Chinese balloon was first detected in US airspace near Alaska on Jan. 28, but its presence was not made public until Feb. 1, when it was spotted in the skies above. above Montana.

It passed through a number of Midwestern states, including sensitive military installations, until two US Air Force jet fighters shot it down on February 4 off South Carolina.

Since then, three other unknown objects have been shot down over North America – off the northern coast of Alaska, over the Yukon Territory in Canada and over Lake Huron near the Canadian border.

The Biden administration said the three objects appeared to belong to private companies, or research or hobby companies and not Chinese spy planes.

Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force, said the military was more concerned about Russia launching ballistic missiles into the country than weather balloons floating in its airspace. .

“They are trying to distract us,” Ihnat told The Washington Post last week, noting that Russia hoped Ukrainian forces would fire on them and reveal their locations.

But he added that Ukrainian forces know the difference between a balloon and a drone.

“These are not new. These are your grandfather’s methods, invented during the Soviet Union,” he said.