Donetsk, Jun 17 - DAN. Unmanned aerial vehicles of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Donbass are jammed daily and attacked in the contact line area, the OSCE SMM press office told the Donetsk News Agency on Thursday.
The use of equipment, including unmanned aerial vehicles of various operating ranges (small, medium and long) contributes to the fulfilment of the SMM mandate. However, SMM UAVs encounter GPS signal interference and come under small arms fire almost every day,” the Mission told the Donetsk News Agency in response to the question regarding OSCE UAVs safe operation in the region.
International monitors have recorded 820 cases of GPS signal interference affecting the operation of their drones since the beginning of this year. “The incidents involving long-range UAVs are of particular concern as GPS signal interference has been recorded in some 83 percent of their flights in the recent months,” the SMM said.
On May 17, international monitors reported that an SMM drone had been damaged next to Stepanovka (located some 30 kilometres northwest of Gorlovka - eds Donetsk News Agency) during emergency landing as both its modules encountred GPS signal interference). The long-range UAV missions were suspended till May 26.*jk