The special monitoring mission of the OSCE was unable to launch the drone in the territory of Donbass controlled by Kiev due to interference with the GPS signal. For the first time since 2014, OSCE experts have encountered deliberate jamming of the GPS signal.
This is stated on Wednesday in the operational report of the observation mission, which was distributed by its press service in Kiev.
“On the evening of April 6, the mission team was unable to lift an SMM long-range unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from a base in government-controlled Stepanivka (54 km north of Donetsk) to regularly monitor areas on both sides of the contact line as a result of Signal interference from both GPS modules (estimated by jamming) For the first time since the mission began using long-range UAVs in October 2014, signal interference prevented the drone from taking off, ”the report said.
The document also indicates that on the evening of April 7, when performing pre-flight preparations, signal jamming at ground level was recorded, which prevented the safe operation of a long-range drone. The mission noted that “in each case, the GPS signal could have been interfered with from anywhere within a few kilometers of the UAV’s location.”
The distance to the nearest point of the line of demarcation between the self-proclaimed republics of the DPR and LPR is more than 25 kilometers.
The OSCE SMM report highlighted that any impact of interference to the GPS signal impedes the mission’s ability to effectively monitor and report on the security situation in accordance with its mandate.
Source: Russian Daily
