HORLIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Authorities in the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian town of Horlivka have installed jamming devices on some of the local buses to protect them from drone strikes, officials told Reuters.
At least one bus driving around the town, located near the Russian-held city of Donetsk, was attacked by a Ukrainian drone this month, Russian-installed authorities say, and three people were wounded in the incident.
Jammers work by disrupting a drone’s communications with its operator, making it less dangerous, although crashing drones have also caused damage in a number of incidents in the Russia-Ukraine war.
“We cannot protect bus drivers and passengers ourselves, so we requested help and they gave us four jamming devices,” said Vladimir Mironov, owner and manager of a bus depot in Horlivka.
“We do not know how effective they will be, but it’s the most we can do for the sake of security at the moment.”
Horlivka is located close to the front lines and local authorities routinely report shelling and drone attacks.
Donetsk has been under Russian control since 2014, but Ukrainian troops continue to hold positions on its outskirts and the city regularly comes under artillery fire.
Donetsk is one of four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine that Russia partly occupies and claimed as its own in 2022 in a move condemned as illegal by most countries at the United Nations General Assembly.
(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Mark Heinrich)
