‘Missile rain’ was supposed to cut US UAV data transfer to Ukraine

By Boyko Nikolov On Oct 30, 2022

PANAGYURISHTE ($1=1.96 Bulgarian Levs) — Shortly after the beginning of October, on the 10th, Russia fired over 80 missiles at Ukrainian infrastructure sites. Much of Ukraine’s power supply was cut off as a result of the “missile rain”. The Russian Ministry of Defense described the missile attack as successful, even using expressions such as “knocking out the Ukrainian command center.”

Japan received an RQ-4B surveillance UAV with Raytheon's EISS — Photo credit: Brozo

Were the Russian missile and air force targets the energy infrastructure sites? Or were they a cover for Moscow’s main objective?

It is believed that the attacks of the Russian Federation were aimed at American aid to the Ukrainian command. Romanian military expert Mr. Valentin Vasilescu launched a similar claim. According to him, Russia has fulfilled an extremely important task with its strikes on the critical infrastructure of Ukraine. The main target was the ground communication stations that receive the signals from the American reconnaissance aircraft [UAVs too].

US Air Force combat control aircraft based in Europe, such as the E-8 Joint STARS, are vital to the Ukrainian armed forces. Such intelligence stations scan and map, providing data on Russian troop movements. Not only the E-8 Joint STARS is involved in the war in Ukraine, but also other similar systems, such as the E-3 AWCS, EC-135, and RQ-4B.

All these aircraft have a long-range, although they are currently patrolling around the Black Sea borders of NATO member states, as well as between the border of Romania and Poland. They are united in a single network, through which the received data is sent to ground stations located in Ukraine. The expert believes that the destruction of communications between the Ukrainian armed forces and NATO air reconnaissance is a secret goal of Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure.

'Missile rain' was supposed to cut US UAV data transfer to Ukraine — Flightradar24 screenshot

But did the Russian missile rain succeed? On Saturday morning [October 29] in Sevastopol, drones attacked the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Russia claims that all the drones were destroyed, with only the Russian minesweeper “Ivan Goblets” slightly injured.

Sources say the attack was coordinated by a Pentagon-owned and NATO RQ-4 Global Hawk drone. The drone took off from a US base in Catania, Italy. The drone’s call sign was FORTE10 with tail number 11-2046. According to Russian sources, the drone has been circling for a long time over Sevastopol Bay, as well as over specific neutral territories over the Black Sea.

As evidence, the Russian media provided a screenshot from the application that monitors all flights – Flightradar24. Although the evidence is circumstantial, there has been no official statement from either the Russian Defense Ministry or the Kremlin that the RQ-4 Global Hawk actually coordinated the Ukrainian attack.

But this brings us back to the topic – if, after all, the “reconnaissance bird” was the coordinator of the drone attack on the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, it means that Russia did not manage to destroy all the stations receiving signals from the air.

But Mr. Vasilescu says there is another important piece of evidence that the Russian missile attack did indeed hit its target. “After that, another moment became known. The Ukrainian air defense system failed to cope with the strikes of the Geran-2 drones, it was actually disabled after strikes on critical objects of the Ukrainian infrastructure. One of the reasons for this success is, that NATO’s remote surveillance radar aircraft can no longer provide Ukraine with the necessary information in the same volume. Without this, the Ukrainian armed forces are unable to cope with Russian drones,” wrote the Romanian.

In the coming days, it will become much clearer whether Russia has succeeded in destroying Ukraine’s receiving stations. Despite Vasilescu’s claim, and although there is some serious logic to it, yesterday’s attack on Russian ships shows that unmanned air and sea vehicles continue to receive and send signals.

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