Russians draw Tu-95 silhouettes at Engels airbase to divert attention from real aircraft - media. PHOTOS
This was reported by Censor.NET with reference to The War Zone.
Planet Labs satellite images show two-dimensional decoys at the Russian airbase in Engels. These silhouettes may be cut out of fabric, but most likely they are painted.
One of the aircraft even had tyres on it to make the decoy more realistic.
This is probably how the Russians want to fool the satellites and interfere with Ukrainian operations. The newspaper believes that this will clearly not work, as even commercial high-resolution satellite images can clearly distinguish between the painted silhouette and the real thing.
Using multiple sources of intelligence, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite imagery, will make it clear that the target is not a three-dimensional object.
However, The War Zone believes that the Russians' tactics may work with low-resolution satellites. They may hope that in such conditions, false targets will confuse drone operators, and they will not hit the real aircraft.
It is possible that such patterns could be aimed at confusing infrared targeting sensors on weapons, as in cruise missiles that use autonomous image matching. But it remains unclear how effective such a tactic might be.