Ukrainian forces say they found and attacked a Russian drone base after hacking a drone and geolocating the footage.
Ukrainian drone commander Robert Brovdi said that electronic warfare specialists were aware of a Russian first-person-view (FPV) drone flying in Kherson and that the feed was “intercepted immediately,” Forbes reported.
The footage was sent to Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade, who geolocated it and sent a reconnaissance drone to investigate the area, Brovdi said.
A video shows a drone positioning itself above a building at the Russian site, which is then struck by artillery.
If true, this would be a really stupid thing to show your hand about.
Maybe it’s at the point where they know the russians don’t have an effective counter to it.
As far as I can see there’s only 2 strategically logical reasons to admit to something like this:
You know for a fact you can’t pull it off anymore/the Russians know this happened so it’s not new information and so spilling the beans is a means of humiliating Russia and winning some good PR.
It’s not actually true and you’re just fucking with Russia and making them second guess things (and also humiliating them if people believe it).
Beyond that it seems really careless to give away some juicy info like this. Just because they might not have a counter to it now does not mean they couldn’t develop one now that they know it’s a factor.
If remediation would require trashing all current drones and not acquiring new ones till they can find the bug and redesign the drone around it then I can see it. Especially if it does not consistantly work. If they can take over every tenth drone and they let this known from the enemy perspective it will look like at will and having all the drones out of commision may be better than reversing the effect 10% of the time.
#3 is my choice and a logical one, considering how the russians have been grinding their capabilities down.
I think either way Russia will have to slow down or even stop using drones until they can figure out how the drone was hacked. So even if they are revealing their hand to early, it is still a big win for Ukraine. They will have less pressure from the sky.