InformNapalm international volunteer community got hold of a short, but very interesting exclusive video from the Ukrainian patriots from the temporarily occupied territory. The video features the latest Russian electronic warfare (EW) system RB-341V Leer-3, spotted in the occupied Donetsk.

A careful review of the video published on March 29 2016 revealed a KamAZ truck that had been spotted in Donetsk before, in 2015.

Although the camouflage pattern does not identity a specific vehicle, we could reliably establish that it is the same type of equipment.

Having combined still-frames of the video, we have ‘assembled’ this vehicle for better visual coherence to compare the camouflage pattern.

Jumping a bit ahead, it should be noted that, according to our assumptions, the video was shot on March 27, 2016.

The vehicle number plate is difficult to make out, but we presume it is “ДК 7415”. We are also seeing the latest tactical marking “3 in a trapezoid’, belonging to one of the Russian-terrorist troops units in the occupied Donbas.

PHOTO FOR COMPARISON

Donetsk, summer of 2015

Geolocation in Street View mode on Google Maps

May, 2015, the training exercises of a Russian-terrorist unit from the 1st Corps of the occupation forces, or, as they call themselves, the Vikings First Mechanized Infantry Battalion.

Having checked Twitter feeds and having googled a bit, we found out that the “3 in a trapezoid” marking is not very common, and was mostly observed in Donetsk.

There is a comparably recent tweet dated March 27, 2016 saying: “Donetsk 18:30 (local time) from DOK a KamAZ with white “3 in a trapezoid” sped thru Kuibyshev st. and turned to Sokolinaya”, which concordat with our video.

The abbreviation DOK referred to in the tweet stands for the woodworking plant neighborhood around Kuybyshev street and is only 7 km away from Pisky, a village which was the scene of heavy fighting for months.

Now let us get down to the most interesting part

The EW system was first shown to the public in early October 2015 at the Innovation Day of the Southern Military District exhibition, according to the Russian Military Review magazine. And according to the official version, the EW unit specialists of the Western Military District were the first to use Leer-3 for training tasks on 14 October 2015.

However, in the spring and summer 2015 this cutting-edge EW system was spotted in the occupied Donbas, which implies that Russia conducted the testing of this equipment in live battle conditions in Ukraine. It turns out, that the Kremlin has set up a testing and training range in the territory of a sovereign foreign country.

Another interesting point: the Russians, so apt at rewriting their history, began to fill the Russian version of the article on Wikipedia about RB-341V Leer-3 only in March, 2016.

Let us have a look at the main technical specifications of this EW system.

Officially Leer-3 is called “aerodynamically delivered jamming transmitter of GSM cellular communication standard user terminals “. In other words, the system is designed to jam the GSM-communication using radio interference transmitted from Orlan-10 drones (2 units in the complete set).

Use

Jamming of mobile communication.

Imitation of GSM 900 and GSM 1800 cellular communication base stations and transmission of faked signals (messages).

Reconnaissance by locating emitting terminals in GSM networks.

Detection of subscriber devices (mobile phones, tablets and other communication systems).

Plotting location of subscriber points on a digital map.

Transmission of location data to artillery crews for target direction.

UAV Orlan-10 is able to stay airborne for up to 10 hours, carrying payload of up to 4 kg. The maximum speed of the drone reaches 150 km/h, cruising speed is 80 km/h.

UPD:

Additional video from April 02, 2016 filmed in Donetsk or Makiivka, exact geolocation not known so far.

(CC BY 4.0) This publication was prepared by a volunteer of InformNapalm international volunteer community Vidal Sorokin.

translated by Mc Joy

edited by Artem Velichko