How Russian cyber army suppressed US F-35 Stealth Fighters by electronic warfare

Russia gave the US taste of its own medicine when Israeli F-35 stealth fighters missed their target due to electronic interference.

 EurAsian Times reported that Israeli jets missed their target because of robust electronic suppression, which disrupted the weapon systems of the Lockheed Martin F-35 jets. 

According to reports, neither aircraft could strike the target during the military drills, which Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett attended.

At the same time, the report notes that this demonstrates the severe vulnerability of the fifth-generation F-35 fighters to electronic countermeasures.

Parth Satam, a defense analyst at the EurAsian Times, said the video shows an air-to-ground munition, reportedly fired from an F-35, missing its target, which the website claims are owing to Electronic Warfare (EW) interference from Russian systems.

While it certainly is true that Russian EW systems like the Krasukha-4 have been highly effective in jamming even US drones, Russia’s interference in Israeli military exercises within its territory seems highly unlikely.

The only situation where Russia would interfere in Israeli air operations is in Syria, where they have a deconfliction mechanism to allow IAF to strike Iranian targets. They also helped shoot down Israeli AGMs with the Buk-M2/3 supplied to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) a few months ago.

But Russia would softly retaliate by electronically interfering in Israeli air operations only around its interests in Ukraine or Syria. The AviaPro report might be valid to the extent that GPS signal disruption has been observed in the Eastern Mediterranean since Russia specifically installed anti-drone and EW systems at its Khmeimem air base in Syria to protect from air and space surveillance.

Russian electronic jammers can disrupt signals from GLONASS, American GPS, European Galileo, and Chinese BieDou satellite navigation systems. Thus aircraft, drones, or missiles will see their GPS receivers go awry.

Even in March 2021, interference was reported on the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite, which some OSINT experts and telecommunications specialists concluded was radar interference. It was over the Black Sea region.

But assuming Russia did directly interfere in the Israeli domestic military drills, it could be because it calculated that the current tensions with Iran where Israel is trying to ramp up a regional coalition against it, conducting cyber attacks within the country and assassinating its military officers and nuclear scientists have gone out of hand.