Putin's Navy Parade Preparations Hint at Drone Attack Fears

Russia's Navy has placed temporary GPS jammers on at least one of its warships ahead of a high-profile naval parade in St. Petersburg, according to experts.

A Russian Navy corvette, pictured on July 14 in Russia's second city, appears to show multiple sets of GPS jammers fitted on the exterior of the vessel, according to an image posted on Wednesday by military and open-source intelligence analyst, H I Sutton.

Newsweek could not independently verify the date and location of the footage. However, military expert David Hambling said that the appearance of what appear to be GPS jammers on the vessel does suggest the Kremlin fears a drone attack orchestrated by Kyiv, supporters of Ukraine or anti-Putin groups. It is "entirely feasible" that Moscow would opt to use jammers and has done so prior to the war in Ukraine, according Samuel Bendett of the Center for Naval Analyses. But it is difficult to judge with limited evidence, he told Newsweek.

Other experts express skeptism over how much the image reveals about any possible jamming features on the ship.

There is speculation that the potential jamming systems could be either part of an R-330Zh Zhitel, a truck-mounted system, or a Pole-21E jamming system. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Russia has an "extensive" track record of using GPS jamming—blocking both GPS reception and "spoofing," which shows a false location on a tracker—to fend off drone attacks, Hambling told Newsweek.

Russia's Navy Day parade is scheduled for July 30, although there had been some debate in Russian state media over whether the parade would go ahead at all.

In a break from tradition, the Northern Fleet's nuclear submarines will not form part of the parade, the Kremlin-backed Tass news agency reported on July 12.

The first parade was held in 2017 in Russia's second city, according to Tass.

Drones and quickly developing unmanned technology have played an important role in the war in Ukraine. Both sides have looked to unmanned technology to inflict damage on critical infrastructure at low cost, with experts saying the ongoing conflict has sparked drone innovation at "lightning pace."

But outside Ukraine's borders, Moscow itself has been repeatedly targeted by drone strikes, the Kremlin has said in recent months.

On May 3, Russia said two drones targeted the Kremlin, which it said it viewed as a "planned terrorist attack and an assassination attempt targeting the President," carried out ahead of the annual Victory Day military celebrations. The drones were intercepted "in the Kremlin grounds, scattering fragments without causing any casualties or damage," the Russian leadership said in a statement.

"Russia reserves the right to take countermeasures wherever and whenever it deems appropriate," the Kremlin added.

Moscow blamed Kyiv for the attack, which denied carrying out the drone strikes.

Later that month, Russia's military said eight Ukrainian drones targeted affluent Moscow neighborhoods, damaging several buildings. Three drones were suppressed using electronic warfare, the Russian Defense Ministry said at the time, adding that the remaining five unmanned aerial vehicles were intercepted with a Pantsir-S air defense system.

On July 4, Moscow accused Ukraine of launching five drones at the Russian capital, saying four of the UAVs were destroyed by Russian air defenses and a fifth was "suppressed by electronic warfare."

Flights were disrupted from Vnukovo airport, one of Moscow's major transport hubs, but there was no damage to infrastructure, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"Given recent repeated drone attacks in Moscow, the main fear may be aerial attack," Hambling said of the Navy Day parade. But Russia has also accused Ukraine of conducting strikes on annexed territory in Crimea using unmanned surface vehicles, attacking the Russian Black Sea naval base at Sevastopol and the Kerch Bridge, a key crossing connecting Crimea to mainland Russia.

This type of attack, often using makeshift waterborne drones, is one Russia's defenses are ill-prepared to combat, experts told Newsweek earlier this week.

A strike on Russia's military in St. Petersburg on Navy Day, however, would appear to be unlikely because of the distance from Ukrainian territory to the Baltic Sea city, Hambling said.

Update 07/20/23, 11.30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comments from Samuel Bendett.