Ukraine’s Lima System Diverted 2 Russian Oreshnik Missiles

Ukrainian troops say they used a domestically developed electronic warfare system to disrupt two Russian Oreshnik ballistic missiles during a May 24 attack, causing both to miss their intended targets.

Soldiers from the Night Watch unit told The New York Times that the Lima system was used against both missiles as they headed toward the Kyiv region.

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According to the soldiers, one missile came down near garages in Bila Tserkva, several miles from any military facility. Following this, a second warhead package disappeared over the Russian-occupied Donetsk region.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin used the Oreshnik in its debut strike on central Ukraine’s Dnipro in November 2024, presenting the missile as proof of Russia’s technological superiority and using it to escalate threats against Kyiv’s Western allies.

According to the report, Putin ordered the production of four additional missiles in 2025 following the initial strike, but subsequent launches have exposed major reliability issues.

Lima, developed by Ukrainian company Cascade Systems, is designed to interfere with the satellite- systems used by Russian missiles and drones.

Alongside jamming signals, it can transmit false positioning information, a technique known as spoofing, intended to send incoming weapons off course. Company representatives and Ukrainian troops told the Times that the system could also affect Russian hypersonic missiles.

The account offers a Ukrainian explanation for the outcome of the May attack. Russian President Vladimir Putin previously described the strike as having been directed at a location where its results could be readily observed.

The system’s effects also reach civilian devices, producing errors that can place people thousands of miles from their actual locations.

The Times described a Kyiv taxi passenger whose app plotted a journey through South America, across the Atlantic Ocean, and into Europe. The estimated travel time was 12,276 minutes – more than eight days.

A Ukrainian government official’s GPS watch recorded a run of more than six kilometers in Lima, Peru, despite the official being in Ukraine.

Kyiv Post journalists encountered a similar problem while visiting antennas belonging to the system near Kyiv – their vehicle’s display also placed them in Peru.

Ukrainian military personnel told that the protection the system provides against Russian aerial attacks outweighed the disruption to civilian .