Experts note that Ukrainian balloons have several surprising properties. What may appear to be a trivial provocation could be an ingenious asymmetric weapon designed to enhance Ukraine’s strategic strike capabilities.
Russian balloons
Still in 2023 in February, Ukrainian defenders shot down several Russian balloons. They appear to have been standard weather balloons with radar reflectors that drifted towards Kiev at altitudes of up to 11,000 feet (3.4 km) and were apparently used as decoys to confuse defenders during drone and missile attacks.
And in March of this year, the Russians announced that they were shooting down Ukrainian balloons, which appear to be larger, more sophisticated – and armed.
“For the first time, the armed forces of Ukraine launched a series of weather balloons with explosives deep into Russia,” state media MASH said.
According to the report, one balloon fell in the forest near the village of New Slobodka, and the other was destroyed in the Kursk region. Some of the balloons carried mortar bombs, while others carried radar reflectors, believed to be designed to make the balloon look like an attack drone – and likely to deflect fire from Russian anti-aircraft defenses. According to MASH, each balloon also has a GPS tracking device, ballast, batteries and control electronics with programmed attack coordinates.
One photo shows an 82mm mortar mine, a 6.5kg fragmentation/explosive device from the downed balloon, and another shows what appears to be a similarly sized improvised explosive device. MASH mentions an 81mm mortar mine – but this is either a mistake or a sign that a third type of weapon is being used.
But the rest of the balloon is much more mysterious.
Three options
Most sources claim that the thin piece of material is the balloon itself – but this does not seem likely.
“The black stuff is not a balloon, it’s more like an oversized parachute,” says balloon expert Chris Hillcox of Near Space Photography.
He notes that there are three main types of balloons: super-pressure (like silver party balloons filled with compressed gas), zero-pressure (where the balloon’s envelope expands as it rises), and the regular white latex balloons used by meteorologists that reach a certain height before bursting. However, the material found does not resemble any of these materials.
“It looks like a wire coming from the base. If so, then no balloon survives, and no conclusions can be drawn about it. It is very easy to install a physical separation separating the payload from the launch balloon. So, they could have used a latex balloon or a small zero-pressure balloon, or even a super-pressure balloon.”
The expert notes that the intact material does not look like a balloon that has malfunctioned or been shot down – which adds weight to the parachute theory.
Steve Randall, a spokesman for the balloon suppliers, Random Engineering Ltd, said the device appeared to be homemade and not like a normal weather balloon. He believes the black material could be plastic, which is used in garbage bags, and that it could have been the casing of a hot-air balloon, a rare type of balloon that absorbs energy from the Sun to heat up and gain buoyancy in the air. Mr Randall notes that such a material could in principle be used for a zero-pressure balloon – but in practice such shells are almost always clear plastic.
Both experts agree with the version that the plastic bottle is most likely intended for ballast. It could be filled with liquid and have a small hole, so it could gradually lose weight to compensate for the loss of lift due to gas escaping from the balloon.
Not the first time
Balloon bombs can be cheap and simple weapons. The earliest known type in 1849. Invented by the Austrian engineer Franz von Uchatius during the siege of Venice. Landlocked Austria had no warships, so in order to bombard the city, F. Von Uchatius attached small bombs to hot-air balloons, which were set off on command by “a long insulated copper wire with a large galvanic battery located on shore,” according to the then ” In a report in Scientific American.
This balloon attack was the first use of armed drones – but the small bombs were not particularly effective. And over the past 175 years, balloon bombs have been reinvented many times, most notably in World War II, when Japanese FuGo incendiary balloons struck the US mainland from thousands of miles away (making them the first intercontinental weapon), and as well as in the Allied Operation Outward against occupied Europe.
Hamas has recently used balloons for incendiary attacks from the Gaza Strip. And while their impact is usually limited, such balloons put a much greater burden on defenders than on the attacker.
However, this Ukrainian version is much more advanced than the previous models. According to Russian reports, the flight range of these balloons was at least hundreds of kilometers.
Similar amateur balloons regularly circle the Earth traveling with air currents (this is also the case with the successful balloon launched by the Lithuanians). Physicist and open source intelligence analyst alias DanielR on the social network “X”, carried out a detailed study of the electronics seen in the photos of Russian sources. He notices that they show a container with control electronics on top of a plastic bottle, and a tracking device with a charge underneath.
“The charge is held in place by a cord that passes through a loop of wire. This wire loop is an important part of the operation of this system, the specialist notes. – The brain of the balloon is a Bluetooth module: this module can activate a relay that sends a current through the loop of wire that contains the charge string. The loop gets very hot, causing the string to melt or burn, releasing the charge.”
The Bluetooth microcontroller module appears to be a commercial ESP32-H2-Mini-1 module from Espressif. The balloon also features a $20 GP1818MK GPS module. Presumably this allows the bomb to be released when the balloon passes over a predetermined target area.
Even more interestingly, there’s a tracking device underneath, the $130 Spot Trace.
“This device sends GPS location data directly to communication satellites. Ukraine can receive this location information at intervals of several minutes, depending on the tracking plan,” notes DanielR.
He says the tracking device is the most expensive part of the balloon. Ch. Hillcox agrees, noting that the entire equipment can cost about $1,000, depending on the type of balloon and whether it’s filled with expensive helium or cheap but dangerous hydrogen.
Radar and GPS
Without a radar reflector, the balloon would be very stealthy and difficult to detect by radar. But Ukrainians probably want him to be visible. At 30,000 feet or higher, the only way to shoot down a balloon is with expensive surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles.
The reflector could also allow the Ukrainians to track the movement of the balloon and compare the data with the data sent by the GPS tracking device. This could help map areas where GPS is jammed or falsified – and the data collected could increase the accuracy of drone strikes.
When the parachute is deployed, the GPS tracker can also drop in place to track GPS jammers for longer periods of time.
A GPS tracking device can be used to control the balloons more and more precisely. The U.S. military and other countries have recently been using balloons that can change altitude to take advantage of winds blowing in different directions.
At high altitude, the atmosphere is stratified and the wind blows in different directions at different altitudes, so once you get to the right altitude, you can point the balloon in almost any direction you want. This method was also used by Google’s now-defunct Project Loon.
Some balloons can now navigate over a certain location and fly around it for a long time. The Pentagon’s COLD STAR (Covert Long Dwell STratospheric Architecture) is a top secret platform that uses this technology. It’s unlikely that Ukraine uses anything this sophisticated – but it could use a similar method to keep its balloons from drifting off in a random direction.
Currently, the accuracy of stratospheric navigation is measured not in meters, but in kilometers – and dropping a bomb from high altitude increases the inaccuracy even further. However, dozens or hundreds of balloon bombs may be enough to make it possible to hit a large target, such as a gas storage facility or an air force base.
During World War II, the Japanese launched several thousand FuGo incendiary balloons, each costing a few hundred dollars – and many of them were assembled in primitive workshops by schoolgirls. This type of mass threat would force the Russians to fight the balloons – and as with FuGo, use a disproportionate amount of resources to counter them.
Balloon interceptor
Surprisingly, Russia is the only country that has a specialized aircraft for shooting down balloons. The M-17 Stratosphere was a high-altitude aircraft designed to intercept American spy balloons. They had been causing problems for the Soviet Union since the 1950s, as the CIA and other organizations launched numerous camera-carrying balloons in an attempt to peer behind the Iron Curtain before satellites existed. The M-17 could climb to 70,000 feet (21 km) and had two turret-mounted 23 mm guns firing special ammunition.
After the balloon threat disappeared, the M-17 was converted into a reconnaissance and high-altitude research aircraft. However, as more Ukrainian balloons take advantage of prevailing winds to cross Russian airspace and potentially fly across the country, Russia may have to start updating its anti-balloon defense plans.
In addition, it must also deal with threats posed by Ukraine’s growing list of other long-range weapons, Forbes reminds.
