According to russian state media, Ruselectronics holding company has created portable radar stations with a weight of 25 kg that allegedly can spot Ukrainian naval drones from 6 km away. Thus these systems could be used for surveillance cover of the so-called Crimean Bridge and other important targets of attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Furthermore, it turns out that initially these radars were developed as elements of protection for the important facilities on the territory of russia in the case of Ukrainian aerial drone attacks. The idea to use the same system against maritime unmanned threats sprang up in the process.
Read more: How They Missed in Russia the Kamikaze Boats That Struck the Kerch Bridge
In some way, this can be interpreted as russians admitting they currently have no radar that can detect explosive suicide boats, even in immediate proximity to the objects they should be protecting. Though what's more interesting is that this is not the only approach they experiment with in terms of protection against Ukrainian naval drones.
OSINT analyst H I Sutton noted in a post on his blog how russians deployed equipment most probably used as a countermeasure against unmanned systems aboard a naval ship during preparations for the Navy Day Parade in St. Petersburg coming up on July 30th.
More specifically, the Sovetsk missile corvette of Project 22800 Karakurt class from the Baltic Fleet of the russian Navy was seen with a station that appears to be a GPS jammer and the antenna from the Pole-21 electronic warfare (EW) system. The latter was previously reported to be able to suppress Starlink signals.
Defense Express memo: although never officially confirmed, multiple analysts suggested that the most likely way Ukrainian naval drones navigate and/or communicate is the SpaceX Starlink satellite internet network.
If this application of the EW on warships is deemed effective, we should expect to see the same upgrade on the ships of the Black Sea Fleet as well, that is, in the region of Ukrainian-russian naval warfare.
Earlier Defense Express analyzed why russia missed the suicide boats that struck the Crimean Bridge on July 17th and considered H I Sutton's theory that Ukraine could have applied altered unmanned jet-skis for this attack.
Read more: Ukraine’s President Says the Kerch Bridge Must Be Neutralized
