The S.U.V. in front of us suddenly pulled over. The driver had been trying to lead us to antennas near Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, that scramble the signals of Russian drones and missiles, but his GPS had gone haywire.
“Apologies. Some technical issues,” texted Serhii, a spokesman for Cascade Systems, the Ukrainian defense company that made the system. He asked that only his first name be used, out of concern for his safety.
We should have known: The S.U.V.’s system had decided that the vehicle was in Lima, Peru, 7,628 miles southwest of Kyiv.
This happens all the time to Ukrainians. When Cascade’s antennas are switched on to misdirect Russian bombardments , the GPS in phones and cars is often misdirected, too — to that particular South American city.
This was now happening to a few of the very guys behind the mapping chaos. They had been hoisted on their own antennas, so to speak.
The system, called Lima for obvious reasons, blasts out electromagnetic interference meant to strip the eyes and ears from Moscow’s missiles and drones, making them think they are somewhere else.
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