The Russian military appears to have employed another deceptive tactic against Ukraine, covering its warplanes with tires to confuse enemy missiles.
Satellite images show several bombers and fighters operated by Moscow’s forces with car tires placed on their wings and the top of their fuselage while stationed at Engels Air Base in Russia’s Saratov Oblast.
According to Schuyler Moore, Chief Technology Officer of US Central Command, the tactic likely aims to disrupt incoming attacks by confusing image-matching weapons searching for hostile aircraft.
“If you put tires on top of the wings, all of a sudden, a lot of computer vision models [will] have difficulty identifying that that’s a plane,” she said during a recent discussion about artificial intelligence (AI) and technology.
Previous analyses suggest that the tires were meant to break up the aircraft’s infrared signatures so incoming missiles would miss their targets. Others speculated that they may be for added protection.
Brace yourselves, because russians have once again showcased unparalleled innovation. What you are looking at is a satellite image featuring a TU-95 strategic bomber covered with car tires. According to them, this should protect strategic bombers from drones pic.twitter.com/ZjDDzRPOWf
— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) September 3, 2023
A Problem With AI-Driven Targeting
Moore’s analysis of Russia’s deception attempt is reportedly part of a broader discussion about AI-driven targeting.
She noted that some weapons rely on pre-set data and image matching to find targets.
Without effective adaptations, an adversary could simply swap or modify their assets to confuse existing targeting systems.
“We’re not saying that we need to have our own internal AI development team. What we need is for our users to better be able to engage with the models that exist out there,” she explained.
“So that means they need to be able to label new data sets that they think are relevant to them. They need to be able to push those labeled data sets to then retrain a model to look for something different.”
The rooftop tyre infection appears to be spreading around the Russian Air Force, now seen here on an Su-34. pic.twitter.com/ysXW96hINL
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 8, 2023
War Deception Tactics
This is not the first time Moscow has employed unusual deceptive strategies during its invasion of Ukraine.
Earlier this year, the Russian military painted images of fighter aircraft on the tarmac of its airfields to mislead Ukrainian forces.
According to a UK Ministry of Defence intelligence report, at least 12 Russian air bases employ the same tactic, demonstrating the country’s large-scale use of deception.
Ukraine has also employed decoys of high-value assets to dupe Moscow into believing it had successfully destroyed them.
