The war in Ukraine has shown the outside world that combat drones are weapons to be reckoned with. Shooting them down is difficult, but disrupting them with microwave weapons can be more effective. At the defense research institute FOI, researcher Tomas Hurtig works with the question: – It is a machine that sends short pulses with very powerful microwaves. The aim is to disrupt electronic systems. The latest application for the type of weapon I’m working on is to protect oneself against smaller drones, says Tomas Hurtig. – It has proven to be quite effective, you disrupt them so that they simply fall out of the air, he continues. How far the development of microwave weapons has come in Sweden is covered by defense secrecy. – That there is ongoing research into that type of weapon around the world, that is beyond all doubt. There are even some systems that are more or less bandaged. In the United States, they have come a long way, says Hurtig. The Havana syndrome Disrupting the electronics of a weapon is one thing, but for ten years there have been suspicions that Russia tested some kind of microwave weapon, or an acoustic weapon against at least a hundred American intelligence officers and their families. The phenomenon is called the Havana syndrome after the place where American diplomats first raised the alarm about strangely severe headaches along with balance problems. American intelligence officers and their families have been affected in several countries. Exactly how individuals were attacked is not fully understood in the West, one theory is that a Russian special unit within the military intelligence service GRU uses some kind of equipment near the victim. The GRU unit is called 29155. It is also considered responsible for poisoning politicians with Novitjok. Aleksander Navalny is one of those affected. The GRU unit is also singled out for blowing up a weapons warehouse in the Czech Republic in 2014. Focus on saving people At the Defense Research Institute, FOI, the focus is rather on protecting people, according to Tomas Hurtig. – We have looked at it from the other side. Now, if we are making microwave weapons to combat an adversary’s military electronic systems, then we want to make sure that the systems are not dangerous to humans. But in Russia there is apparently some unknown form of radiation weapon, or alternatively a sound wave weapon that can be directed at individuals. And the affected Americans have had no definite answers. Paasikivi: “Important key personnel injured” Lieutenant Colonel Joakim Paasikivi, a teacher at the Defense Academy in Stockholm, believes that important key personnel in the intelligence world may have been injured. – If it is as it seems, and I think it is not completely unreasonable, then one has relatively successfully influenced or damaged important key persons in the intelligence world and diplomacy working with Russia. The American capability in that area has thus been lowered.
t4-general