RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine keeps no secrets from CIA – Zelensky
Kiev does not keep “any secrets” from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), President Vladimir Zelensky has admitted. He made the remarks in an exclusive interview with CNN, aired on Monday, expressing “surprise” that his recent meeting with CIA boss William Burns got into the media limelight.
“My communication with the CIA chief should always be behind the scenes. We discuss important things – what Ukraine needs and how Ukraine is prepared to act,” Zelensky stated.
Kiev remains in close cooperation with the American spy agency, Zelensky admitted, adding that the country virtually has no secrets from the CIA. Ukrainian spy agencies maintain contacts with the CIA, he added, without specifying the agencies in question.
We don’t have any secrets from the CIA because we have good relations and our intelligence services talk with each other.
“The situation is pretty straightforward. We have good relations with the CIA chief, and we are talking. I told him about all the important things related to the battlefield that we need,” Zelensky explained.
Media in America reported on Burns’ most recent visit of the to Kiev over the weekend. Apart from meeting Zelensky himself, the agency director was said to have also held talks with unspecified Ukrainian intelligence officials.
“Director Burns recently traveled to Ukraine, as he has done regularly since the beginning of Russia’s recent aggression more than a year ago,”an anonymous US official told CNN. “As with other trips, the director met with his Ukrainian intelligence counterparts and President Zelensky, reaffirming the US commitment to sharing intelligence to help Ukraine defend against Russian aggression.”
Apart from acknowledging Kiev’s close ties with the CIA, Zelensky reiterated his war goals, once again pledging to conquer the Crimean Peninsula. Crimea split from Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup, voting overwhelmingly to rejoin Russia in a referendum.
“We cannot imagine Ukraine without Crimea. And while Crimea is under Russian occupation, it means only one thing: the war is not over yet,”Zelensky stressed, adding that any scenario without seizing Crimea from Russia would not count as a “victory” for the country.
** Russian forces destroy all Leopard tanks supplied to Kiev by Poland, Portugal — Shoigu
Russian forces wiped out 16 German-made Leopard tanks or actually 100% of this armor supplied to the Kiev regime by Poland and Portugal, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a conference call with military commanders on Monday.
"In the south Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Donetsk directions alone where Ukrainian armed formations are undertaking unsuccessful attacks, the groupings of Russian forces destroyed 15 aircraft, three helicopters and 920 pieces of armor, including 16 Leopard tanks. This is actually 100% of the tanks of this type supplied by Poland and Portugal," the defense chief said.
The Russian armed forces continue effectively inflicting damage on the enemy by firepower, which considerably diminishes its offensive potential, Shoigu said.
In all, Ukrainian troops have lost about 2,500 various armaments in all directions since June 4. In addition, Russian air defense forces intercepted 158 rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system and 25 Storm Shadow cruise missiles over the past month, the defense chief said.
The enemy has not achieved its objectives in any of the frontline sectors, which testifies to the skills of Russian fighters and "clearly too high expectations from much-touted Western weapons," Shoigu said.
Ukrainian troops have been employing German-made Leopard tanks since they launched their counteroffensive on June 4. The Russian Defense Ministry has repeatedly reported the destruction of these tanks.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Russia's electronic warriors are intercepting Ukrainian troops' communications and jamming their GPS-guided bombs, experts say
Russian jamming has become so effective that Ukraine — as well as the US and NATO — can no longer assume that Joint Direct Attack Munition glide bombs and other smart weapons will hit their targets.
That's the conclusion of an analysis by Britain's Royal United Services Institute. "Jamming is not causing the JDAMs to stop working, but it is risking their accuracy," according to RUSI researcher Thomas Withington.
While anti-jamming upgrades to JDAM may mitigate the problem, Russian electronic-warfare systems can simply drown out the GPS guidance signal from satellites. "The problem may well be the sheer power of the jamming signal that can be brought to bear," Withington said.
The warning comes after Pentagon documents leaked in April revealed concerns that Russian jamming was reducing the accuracy of American guided weapons, including JDAM as well as HIMARS rockets.
The effect on JDAM is particularly significant, as it is arguably the simplest and most cost-effective smart bomb. By attaching fins and a GPS guidance system to cheap, old-fashioned "dumb" bombs, Ukraine could produce long-range guided weapons at a fraction of the cost of special precision-guided munitions that are in short supply.
The JDAM Extended Range bombs sent to Ukraine reportedly have a range of up to 50 miles, allowing launch aircraft to remain safely out of range of Russian air defenses.
These GPS-guided munitions initially offered Ukraine hope of offsetting Russian superiority in manpower and weapons. Indeed, HIMARS proved crucial in Ukraine's limited counteroffensive in summer 2022, as rockets devastated Russian headquarters and supply dumps.
That Russia is developing countermeasures shouldn't be surprising. All weapons eventually lose some effectiveness as the enemy adapts. Nor is it a secret that the Russian military, like its Soviet predecessor, devoted great effort to developing a variety of electronic-warfare systems.
In particular, Withington pointed to the Russian Army's R-330Zh Zhitel, a mobile truck-mounted jamming system specifically designed to disrupt GPS and satellite communications in the 100 MHz to 2 GHz wavebands. "Signals from the U.S. GPS satellites which JDAM kits use are transmitted on wavebands from 1.164 GHz to 1.575 GHz," according to Worthington. "These fall squarely within the R-330Zh's catchment area."
Worthington claims to have seen official documents that put the R-330Zh range at 18.6 miles, with a 10kW-strong jamming signal. This is "notably stronger than the strength of the GPS signal arriving from space," he noted. "Moreover, the closer the GPS receiver is to the R-330Zh's jamming antenna, the stronger the jamming signal becomes."
In theory, the Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module upgrade to JDAM in the early 2000s should ensure that JDAM will only respond to authorized M-Code encrypted military GPS signals. However, Russian jammers may still be able to disrupt the signals through "sheer brute force" jamming beams, Withington said.
Russia could also intercept M-Code signals and retransmit them with slight alterations to a JDAM, causing the bomb to miss. Efforts to bypassing Russian interference by using signals from multiple GPS satellites could in turn be countered by employing multiple jammers.
Russia's counter-GPS efforts are part of a massive electronic-warfare campaign that has also disrupted Ukrainian radio communications and drone operations.
Russian forces "now employ approximately one major EW system per 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] of frontage, usually situated approximately 7 kilometers [4.3 miles] from the frontline," according a recent RUSI report on Russian tactics. This jamming has contributed to a Ukrainian drone loss rate that RUSI estimates to be as high as 10,000 UAVs per month.
According to the RUSI report, Russian EW troops are also "highly capable" at intercepting and decrypting Ukrainian radio communications. In one case, they appeared to intercept and decode an encrypted radio message from Ukrainian troops calling in a fire mission in real time, allowing Russian commanders to send "pre-emptive warning" to their units.
Nonetheless, Russian electronic warfare has limitations. Emitting jamming beams discloses a jammer's location, and Ukraine appears to have located and destroyed Russian systems such as the R-330Zh. Ironically, smothering the airwaves with powerful jamming beams may also be disrupting Russian GPS and radio communications.
"Russia's GLONASS GNSS constellation transmits some signals which are similar to GPS," Withington noted. There is evidence that "the Russian Army regularly suffers electromagnetic fratricide to this end. The force often exhibits scant concern for jamming friendly signals when attacking its enemies."
Jamming hasn't made JDAM obsolete. Like other facets of warfare, electronic warfare is like a chess game, where move is followed by countermove. Either way, US engineers "may have to rethink how they safeguard JDAMs for the wars of tomorrow, based on the conflicts of today," said Withington.
** Moscow says 700,000 children from Ukraine conflict zones now in Russia
Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday.
"In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine," Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion on its western neighbour Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow says its programme of bringing children from Ukraine into Russian territory is to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.
However, Ukraine says many children have been illegally deported and the United States says thousands of children have been forcibly removed from their homes.
Most of the movement of people and children occurred in the first few months of the war and before Ukraine started its major counter offensive to regain occupied territories in the east and south in late August.
In July 2022, the United States estimated that Russia "forcibly deported"260,000 children, while Ukraine's Ministry of Integration of Occupied Territories, says 19,492 Ukrainian children are currently considered illegally deported.
RT/Tass/Business Insider/Reuters
