Ukraine is deploying a nationwide electronic warfare system to confuse satellite navigation. Known as Pokrova, the system aims to prevent Russian missiles and drones from finding their targets and may already be in operation. It is likely to also affect satellite navigation for people in Ukraine.
The 鈥渟poofing鈥� system interferes with GPS and other satellite navigation systems such as Russia鈥檚 GLONASS and Europe鈥檚 Galileo, collectively known as Global Navigation Satellite Systems, or GNSS.
鈥淢uch GNSS spoofing is based on simply modulating a fake GNSS signal with incorrect timing information, which starts to make things very confusing for the drones,鈥� says at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in the UK.
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Unlike jamming, which overwhelms navigation systems with noise, spoofing causes them to give a false location. Russia has been doing this for years. For example, , and ships in the Black Sea have appeared to be many kilometres inland. These are both believed to be due to Russian defensive measures.
Ukraine鈥檚 nationwide system is on a much larger scale, however. Russia regularly attacks Ukraine using Iranian Shahed 136 drones with simple satellite guidance. The Shahed has a backup navigation system, but this quickly loses accuracy and so wouldn鈥檛 cope with prolonged spoofing.
鈥淭he spoofing slips in fake signals which confuse the receiver, making it go crazy or directing it to an empty field instead of the target,鈥� says Withington.
Spoofing might cause all GPS receivers, including those in smartphones or cars, to have their locations offset by a small distance 鈥� making the interference difficult to spot 鈥� or may give false locations hundreds of kilometres away. This could cause inconvenience in Ukraine, but it isn鈥檛 likely to make GPS-dependent devices permanently useless because the system may only be activated when there is a threat.
鈥淚 suspect that this would only be used in places and at times when they were actually under attack by drones or missiles,鈥� says at the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation in Virginia, a non-profit organisation that advocates for satellite navigation services. 鈥淪o, minimal side effects to their own infrastructure and military GNSS capability.鈥�
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine鈥檚 armed forces, revealed the existence of the Pokrova system in November in a . He didn鈥檛 say when it would be activated, but on 20 January, the official Ukrainian military Telegram channel noted an overnight attack by seven Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs): 鈥淢obile firing groups of the Ukrainian Defence Forces have destroyed four enemy UAVs, the remaining three did not reach their targets.鈥�
After another attack, reported today, it was announced that and 鈥渋n addition, at least seven attack drones did not reach their targets and were lost in location鈥�.
The wording of these reports may imply that Pokrova successfully spoofed the Shaheds鈥� guidance, but no details have been given.
Withington isn鈥檛 aware of any Western countries working on large-scale systems for drone defence, although the experiences of Ukraine and Russia, and the failures of existing missile defence systems to stop long-range drone attacks in other countries, suggest that such spoofing measures may be needed in future wars in addition to other defences. He suggests Ukraine may be leading the way.
鈥淎t this point, it may not be so much a question of what the allied nations can teach Ukraine, as what [Ukraine] can teach us,鈥� says Withington.
