The Invisible Russia-Ukraine Battlefield | WIRED

Russia’s systems are “not very mobile, not very distributed,” Clark told Wired. Their relatively small number of large systems, Clark said, “were not really relevant in combat.”

Moscow’s strategy assumed that there would be a relatively stable battlefield. They will be deployed at the front infaunaA heavily armored vehicle that targets radio communications. Further out, about 15 miles from the front line, they would send Learn-3A six-wheeled truck that can not only jam cellular networks, disrupt communications and even Relaying SMS to nearby cell phones. Even further out, from a range of about 180 miles, is fire-truck-sized Krasukha-4 The aerial sensor will scratch.

“When you get closer to the front, you get electronic weather,” Clark said. “Your GPS won’t work, your cell phone won’t work, your Starlink won’t work.”

This electromagnetic no-man’s-land is when you “barrage,” Clark explains. But there is a big trade off, he said. Jamming across the spectrum requires more power, as does jamming over a wider geographic area. The higher the power of a system, the larger it must be. So you can disrupt all communications in a targeted area, or some communications further afield—but not necessarily both.

Move fast and jam things

The Russian military, early in the war, was crippled by poor communications, poor planning, and general laziness in adaptation. Even still, it was a big head start. “Unfortunately, the enemy has a numerical and material advantage,” a representative of Ukrainian defense technology startup UP Innovations told WIRED in a written statement.

So Ukraine has developed two complementary strategies: build large quantities of inexpensive EW solutions and make them iterative and adaptable.

Ukraine’s Bukovel-AD anti-drone system, for example, fits comfortably in the back of a pickup truck. D Eater The system, the size of a suitcase, can detect jamming signals from Russian EW systems – allowing Ukraine to target them with artillery. Ukrainian electronic warfare company Kvertus now makes 15 different anti-drone systems—from drone-jamming backpacks to stationary devices that can be installed on radio towers to stop incoming UAVs.

When full-scale war broke out in 2022, Kvertus had one product: a shoulder-mounted anti-drone gun, like the EDM4S. “In 2022, [we were producing] Ten thousand devices,” Yaroslav Filimonov, CEO of Quartas told me when we sat down in his Kiev office this March. “In 2023 it was hundreds. now? It’s thousands.”