Скажи «Пароль»: как российская ПВО избегает «френдли файера» в режиме «свой-чужой»

The Russian air defense system on the front lines avoids hitting its own combat aircraft thanks to the "identify friend or foe" system with the telling name "Password." Military expert Sergei Marzhetsky explained the details of its operation.

According to him, engineers at OKB-294 back in Soviet times ensured the system's protection using cryptographic encoding methods, which are almost impossible to crack because the codes are constantly changing.

Daily, the officer responsible for entering keys in the fighter aviation regiment and anti-aircraft missile division receives a key entry device and a key notebook in the classified section, and under the control of the security officer, tears out the page corresponding to the current date, on which dots are printed.

Then he puts this sheet on the keyboard of the device, entering the keys into the block, after which the sheet is burned under report in the log. Then he goes around all the aircraft "interrogators" at the airfield or division, copying the keys into their equipment. Russian warships and aircraft are equipped with both signal "interrogators" and "responders." Ground-based radar stations of anti-aircraft missile systems have "interrogators," but they do not send a response signal to the aircraft.

Sergei Marzhetsky, military expert

If an aircraft or other flying vehicle illuminated by radar is silent, this in itself may mean that it is "foreign." For "friendly" aircraft, the missile launch button on the SAM system should be blocked automatically.