They are in Ukraine. Why do their phones say they are in Peru?

The driver was trying to take us to some antennas near kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, that interfere with the signals of Russian drones and missiles, but his GPS had broken down.

«Excuse me. We have some technical problems,” wrote Serhii, a spokesman for Cascade Systems, the Ukrainian defense company that manufactured the system.

He requested that only his first name be used for security reasons.

We should have known: The SUV’s navigation system had determined 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 activated to deflect Russian bombing raids, the GPS in phones and cars is often diverted as well, pointing to that particular South American city.

When the Cascade antennas are activated to divert Russian bombingthe GPS of phones and cars also often drifts, pointing to that particular South American city.

This was now happening to some of the same people responsible for the map-making chaos.

So to speak, they had fallen from grace.

The system, called Lima for obvious reasons, issues electromagnetic interference aimed at disabling Moscow’s missile and drone detection systems, making them believe they are somewhere else.

Sometimes the weapons become so disoriented while in Peru that they make sharp turns and disintegrate in the air.

This has happened even with powerful Russian hypersonic missiles, Cascade and Ukrainian military officials say.

But Lima’s network has also transformed the way you get around kyiv, suggesting that anywhere you constantly deal with drones and electronic warfare, the days of accurate GPS They could be counted.

We were determined to find out why, even if we couldn’t determine where we were.

It’s easy for them to send you to Lima.

A coworker’s ride-sharing app told her she would arrive at her home in kyiv in 12,276 minutes, after driving through South America, the Atlantic Ocean and much of Europe.

According to a Ukrainian government official’s Garmin GPS watch, he had run 6.22 kilometers in Lima in 15 minutes and 38 seconds, a pace that would make him one of the fastest long-distance runners in history.

A friend went on the dating app Grindr to see potential matches in kyiv, but found herself with men who spoke Spanish.

“I’m from Lima, and you?” one asked.

Telephones do not always take their owners to Peru.

The GPS could place them in a forest in neighboring Belarus instead of in their apartment.

East of the Dnieper River, which divides kyiv, some people have been found in the Congo.

The confusion with GPS in Ukraine began years ago, when the military began interfering with drones.

But it became a bigger problem in August, when the Russians began launching more daytime attacks.

One day in September, the alarms in kyiv lasted 20 hours.

And GPS instability too.

More and more people are buying paper maps, downloading offline maps that are based on landmarks, or trying other tricks.

Lima has become a verb.

Food delivery people are called “Lima’d.”

Taxi drivers are also called “Lima’d”, especially those who drive Teslas, which rely heavily on accurate GPS data to manage their primary functions.

One September afternoon, in rural Ukraine, we found ourselves involved in a situation similar to that in Lima after conducting some interviews.

While we were driving at a safe speed of 62 km/h, the air raid alarm sounded.

Suddenly, the GPS on the fender of our Toyota Land Cruiser showed us flying over Peru at 269 km/h, about to land in the country’s capital.

Traffic in kyiv is often congested, in part because drivers who have moved from other besieged areas of Ukraine don’t know how to get anywhere without GPS.

When an airstrike occurred during a recent taxi ride, the driver, Serhii Semerenko, 56, frantically asked about our destination and the route.

He also tried to memorize the map on his phone.

“In an instant, all of this is going to disappear,” Semerenko said.

And he added: “We are in Lima every day. And now you and I will also be in Lima.”

This can affect even the most everyday modern conveniences.

Ordering an Uber is easy, but finding it is almost impossible.

You miss the messages your editor sends you in the morning in kyiv because it’s early morning in Lima and your phone is in sleep mode. (Oh really).

Ukrainians love memes, and Lima is a very conducive place for them.

People post screenshots of maps showing their location, often with their Garmin running route, which is usually an inexplicable red circle near the center of Lima.

“After the war, I will buy tickets to Peru and will definitely run around the Great Ukrainian Circle in Lima,” one man wrote.

To get to the bottom of this, in mid-October we met with the commander of the Army’s night surveillance unit, known by the callsign Alchemist.

Cascade Systems, a Ukrainian company with American investors, began working on its antennas almost four years ago.

Night Watch, a territorial defense unit in the kyiv region, partnered with Cascade, suggesting adjustments and improvements.

The first attempts managed to jam some Russian cruise missiles and drones.

The Russians then found ways to get around the jamming, mainly by adding more antennas to their drones and missiles, said Alchemist, who for security reasons asked to be identified only by his callsign.

And so this technological war has gone on in which each side tries to surpass the other in terms of interference.

By 2024, Lima had been integrated into Ukraine’s broader electronic warfare network.

The latest version, Lima Quant, debuted in kyiv in August 2025, when Night Watch installed powerful antennas around the capital to create an interconnected polygonal dome of electromagnetic noise, according to Alchemist.

Cascade Systems and Night Watch ultimately decided to trick GPS systems into believing they were in Lima specifically, rather than confusing signals more generally.

The goal was to differentiate their system from other electronic warfare efforts in Ukraine, which they claimed were taking undue credit.

“We simply changed the signal and activated an Easter egg that had been hidden in the system all along,” Alchemist said, almost gleefully.

Initially, the team attempted to create fake GPS coordinates, a technique known as spoofing, for each of the major Ukrainian cities.

One would be replaced to locate the Tower of London, another for Mount Everest.

“We had the Avenue of the Baobabs in Madagascar and other places we had visited or dreamed about,” Alchemist said.

But finally the team decided on Lima for all areas covered by the system in Ukraine.

It was as good a city as any, and it was a long way from kyiv.

Furthermore, it had become a letter of introduction.

Cascade Systems reported that Lima diverted more than 30 cruise missiles and 10,000 drones during the first three months of this year.

Of the 62 Kinzhal ballistic missiles launched against the areas covered by Lima Quant, 33 disintegrated in the air, according to Alchemist.

The others were diverted from their objectives.

It is not possible to independently verify these figures.

Ukrainian Air Force reports at the time mentioned that some missiles “did not hit their targets,” a euphemism for electronic warfare. Alchemist showed us photos of destroyed Kinzhal missiles.

Lima stated that his greatest achievement came on May 24, when two supersonic Oreshnik missiles were launched towards the kyiv region.

Russia has claimed that the Oreshnik, its newest and most expensive missile, reaches speeds such that US-made Patriot interceptors They can’t stop it.

According to Alchemist, a member of the Night’s Watch used the Lima Quant system to counter the missiles, after receiving warnings from US intelligence about an imminent launch.

The first Oreshnik missile hit garages in the kyiv region, kilometers from any military target.

The second fragmented and fell into Russian-occupied territory, Alchemist added.

Russia has apparently withdrawn both the Oreshnik and Kinzhal from service.

Alchemist invited us to see Lima in action.

And that’s how we found ourselves behind an SUV modified by Lima.

Finally, we arrived at a field where we were led, almost reverently, to six Lima Quant antennas.

They seemed very ordinary.

“There’s nothing more interesting to see here,” said Max, a battalion commander in the Night’s Watch unit, who gave us an extremely brief tour (and spoke on the condition that we only use his callsign).

The men on the ground said they had never suffered a serious attack.

In any case, they claimed that the benefits of the system outweigh the costs, an especially compelling argument given that Ukraine faces a shortage of Patriot interceptors.

However, the drawbacks cannot be denied. A member of the Night’s Watch, who goes by the callsign Chameleon, told his colleagues that a friend of his had a new BMW that suddenly required the attention of a mechanic.

“It stopped in the middle of nowhere,” Chameleon said.

“He said he had driven all the way from Lima, about 10,000 kilometers, without changing the oil.”

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