Russia likely deploying decoy balloons over Ukraine in new tactic: UK

Russia is likely deploying balloons over Ukraine to act as decoys to gather information about the country’s defense systems and to force the military to use up precious missiles to shoot them down, Britain’s defense ministry said Sunday.

In an intelligence update posted on Twitter, the UK Ministry of Defense said balloons or “balloon-shaped objects” have been spotted in the air over Ukraine last week — a distinct change in tactics on the part of the Russian military. 

“It is likely that the balloons were Russian. They likely represent a new tactic by Russia to gain information about Ukrainian air defense systems and compel the Ukrainians to expend valuable stock of surface-to-air missiles and ammunition,” the alert said. 

The ministry of defense said the Ukrainian military detected several balloons with radar reflectors over Kyiv on Feb. 15 and shot down at least six of them. 

More balloons were spotted over Dnipropetrovsk on Feb. 12. 

And on Feb. 14, a “balloon-shaped” object forced the closure of Moldovan airspace for a number of hours. 

“There is a realistic possibility that this was a Russian balloon that had drifted from Ukrainian airspace,” the ministry said. 

Col. Margo Grosbert, the head of Estonian Defense Forces, said last week that it appeared Russia was using relatively cheap weather balloons to probe air defense systems and force the military to expend ammunition.

“This both wastes anti-aircraft weapons and exhausts the crews. It also makes the anti-aircraft crews visible as a result of their actions, because you can then see where the missiles are coming from,” he said.

Grosberg said the use of balloons was a new development in the war and wondered if Russia borrowed the idea from the Chinese, which sent a spy balloon over the US earlier this month. 

The Chinese balloon was first detected entering US airspace near Alaska on Jan. 28, but its presence wasn’t made public until Feb. 1 when it was spotted in the sky over Montana.

It crossed over a number of midwestern states, including some sensitive military installations, until two US Air Force jet fighters shot it down on Feb. 4 off the coast of South Carolina. 

Since then, three other unknown objects have been shot down over North America — off the northern coast of Alaska, over the Yukon Territory of Canada and over Lake Huron near the Canadian border. 

The Biden administration said the three objects appeared to belong to private companies, or research or recreational companies and not Chinese spy aircraft.  

Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s air force, said the military is more concerned with Russia lobbing ballistic missiles into the country than floating weather balloons into its airspace. 

“They’re trying to distract us,” Ihnat told the Washington Post last week, pointing out that Russia hoped Ukrainian forces would fire on them and reveal their locations.

But he said Ukrainian forces know the difference between a balloon and a drone. 

“These are not new. They’re your grandfather’s methods, invented during the Soviet Union,” he said.