Somebody Is Jamming Those German Drones in East Ukraine

This gem from the Wall Street Journal , (behind paywall),  - a dependable bullhorn for Pentagon talking points, trots out the usual baloney about Russia invading Ukraine again, (what is this, the 30th time this year?)

It does take a swipe at NATO BSer in Chief Breedlove, claiming he can't really provide any evidence, just take his word for it.

The hoot comes when OSCE boss Zannier says he can't for the life of him figure out who is jamming those pretty (and very expensive) German drones he likes so much.  So they're just sitting around gathering dust on a field in East Ukraine.

BRUSSELS—NATO confirmed on Wednesday that columns of weaponry and troops have entered eastern Ukraine from Russia in recent days, and international monitors in the region said Russian-backed rebels there have been gaining territory.

The monitoring group also said that its surveillance drones have been shot at and electronically jammed, further undermining the two-month-old, barely observed cease-fire.

The Ukrainian military had reported fresh incursions of dozens of Russian tanks and other vehicles with fighters late last week, heightening fears of a return to all-out conflict.

Gen. Philip Breedlove, the top military commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, confirmed that columns of Russian tanks, artillery, air defense systems and combat troops had been seen entering Ukraine in recent days.

“We don't have a good picture at this time of how many,” Gen. Breedlove told reporters during a visit to Bulgaria on Wednesday.

He said their goal may be to consolidate the separatist enclaves. “It is our first guess that these forces will go in to make this a more contiguous, more whole and capable pocket of land, to then hold on to it long-term,” Gen. Breedlove said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the allegations of a military presence—troops or weaponry—in Ukraine, calling them, like previous ones, “regular concussions of the Brussels air.”

In Brussels, the director of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said separatists have gained territory in recent weeks, in some cases moving the cease-fire line dozens of kilometers (miles) to the west.

“While our aim is to try to work to consolidate the cease-fire, it is more on paper,” said Lamberto Zannier, the OSCE’s secretary-general. He added that “the flow of armaments in the region may lead to another more open confrontation.”

He also said that the group’s drones monitoring military activity in eastern Ukraine have been shot at and subjected to sophisticated jamming, part of a rapidly deteriorating situation in the region.

Mr. Zannier is in Brussels this week to confer with officials from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Ukraine standoff.

On Tuesday, the OSCE reported a convoy of 43 unmarked green military trucks, towing howitzers and rocket launchers, moving toward the center of Donetsk, latest of a series of OSCE reports of apparent Russian incursions. 

The OSCEthe , whose 57 members include the U.S. and Russia, currently has 261 observers in Ukraine, 112 of them in the east.

Gen. Breedlove, NATO’s top military commander, said during a visit to Bulgaria that the alliance has seen the same activity as the OSCE.

“The current international border of Ukraine and Russia is completely porous. It is completely wide-open. Forces, money, support, supplies, weapons are flowing back and forth across this border completely at will. And that is not a good situation,” he said.

The recent territorial gains by the Russian-backed rebels have been notable but not extensive, Mr. Zannier said. The rebels haven’t taken over cities but rather captured Ukrainian checkpoints, enabling them to move the line of control westward.

The OSCE said its attempts to help bridge the gap between the two sides is getting harder. “We are a civilian mission with a task that is increasingly resembling a peacekeeping action, and operating in an environment where there is constant exchange of fire,” Mr. Zannier said.

The OSCE began launching unmanned aerial vehicles in late October to boost its information-gathering. But one of the drones was targeted by antiaircraft fire on Nov. 2 in an area 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) east of the strategic city of Mariupol, escaping any damage.

The OSCE grounded the drones several days ago, largely because their information systems were being jammed. The contractor supplying the aircraft described the jamming as highly sophisticated.

“They say it is high-grade military-specification jamming, so it isn’t an amateur job,” Mr. Zannier said. “We are working to find countermeasures so we can continue to use” the drones.

Asked who has such jamming capability in the region, Mr. Zannier said, “I can’t speculate. I can imagine who has it, but I can’t say for sure.”

As a result of the jamming, the OSCE continues to struggle to find out what is going on in key areas like Mariupol, a port city, close to rebel-held territory, that remains in government hands.

“We’ve gone blind there,” Mr. Zannier said. “That is one area where we are concerned. We see that there is shelling, that there is military pressure in that area. But we don’t have access.”