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Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

ua.interfax.com.ua

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Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#31

It landed in an area of Zagreb called Jarun. There’s also a place in Ukraine called Yarun. I think someone entered Jarun on Google Maps, selected the wrong place and entered the coordinates without looking. More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.

No post body was provided.

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#32

It landed in an area of Zagreb called Jarun. There’s also a place in Ukraine called Yarun. I think someone entered Jarun on Google Maps, selected the wrong place and entered the coordinates without looking. More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.

Being it a reconnaissance drone, why did it crashed in Jarun? I could expect this behaviour from a loitering munition, but a reconnaissance drone should come back to its airbase after completing its activity.

If the "operator entered the wrong coordinates" hypothesis is correct, the distance between the base and where the drone ended up might have been much greater than the distance between the base and the intended target, which could mean the drone didn't have enough battery and/or fuel to get back.

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#33
post #20

It landed in an area of Zagreb called Jarun. There’s also a place in Ukraine called Yarun. I think someone entered Jarun on Google Maps, selected the wrong place and entered the coordinates without looking. More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.

Even more confusingly, they're both written "Ярун"—making this the most likely scenario in my eyes.

I don't think that's it champ. Croatians don't have the "Я" letter.

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#34
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more confusingly, they're both written "Ярун"—making this the most likely scenario in my eyes.

I don't think that's it champ. Croatians don't have the "Я" letter.

Croatians didn’t fire it, champ. It’s Ярун for both in Russian.

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#35
post #11

I don't trust either Ukraine nor Russia in this matter. I can see Ukraine using it for surveillance and the drone going haywire. I also can see Russia using it as SAM bait but the drone flying off all up to Croatia. I am confused how it managed to go through two NATO countries skies for over 600 KM in a state of heightened alert.

> I can see Ukraine using it for surveillance and the drone going haywire. I can imagine that 1980's equipment is trivial to jam these days for most armed forces.

That too, if it lost contact with the command post it would probably just go until it ran out of fuel.

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's it champ. Croatians don't have the "Я" letter.

Croatians didn’t fire it, champ. It’s Ярун for both in Russian.

That spelling is valid in both Russian and Ukrainian

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#37

It landed in an area of Zagreb called Jarun. There’s also a place in Ukraine called Yarun. I think someone entered Jarun on Google Maps, selected the wrong place and entered the coordinates without looking. More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.

That doesn’t really make sense. It wouldn’t necessarily or even likely have crashed at its destination as it should have returned to base once it reached those coordinates and completed its mission. And even if it were programmed to loiter until it was out of fuel (which… why?), the drones are supposed to land with a parachute so it wouldn’t have just crashed and exploded. The name coincidence is only interesting if you assume it crashed in a specific place of interest as opposed to randomly along its course. It’s much more likely and common for someone to fat finger in coordinates with a small, random error like flipping a sign or swapping digits. Flipping the sign on latitude or longitude fools the drone’s GNC system into targeting a destination that is on the opposite side of the planet and the system just flies in a straight line in that direction until it runs out of fuel. It’s the same failure mode as googling the wrong coordinates but a more commonly occurring category of user error.

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#38
post #37

It landed in an area of Zagreb called Jarun. There’s also a place in Ukraine called Yarun. I think someone entered Jarun on Google Maps, selected the wrong place and entered the coordinates without looking. More worrying is that no detection system has seen it.

That doesn’t really make sense. It wouldn’t necessarily or even likely have crashed at its destination as it should have returned to base once it reached those coordinates and completed its mission. And even if it were programmed to loiter until it was out of fuel (which… why?), the drones are supposed to land with a parachute so it wouldn’t have just crashed and exploded. The name coincidence is only interesting if…

It did deploy parachutes. It’s almost exactly 1000 km away which is the range of the drone. There was no explosion so they assume it ran out of fuel. Keep in mind this is 1970s tech, not some advanced ai drone. The chances of hitting a city instead of some countryside are pretty slim.

Re: Drone downed in Zagreb is not Ukrainian – adviser to defense minister

#39
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Tu-141 has a range of about 1000km, so presumably 2000km one way. 1000km I've seen around refers to range of flight, not mission range, so no need to double it. edit: Removed some speculation.

Then that would point toward a Ukrainan likely making the Ярун mistake. I suppose they'd be even more prone to not checking the country and assuming it's the one nearby/in their country.

Ukrainians are more prone to be aware there were two cities with similar names than Russians. By way of example, people who live in Washington State know that cities named Vancouver exist in both Canada and Washington and that you do have to be careful which one you pick even though one is much larger and better known. Washington State residents may of course still make the mistake, but they are FAR less likely to do so than someone who grew up in the Eastern US or Mexico who had no direct personal experience or awareness of the duplicate naming prior to clicking on a search result. Russian troops come from all over Russia. Ukrainian troops come from Ukraine. Proximity-based awareness of the potential for confusion will be far higher on average for the Ukrainians.
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