The invisible battlefield Russia-Ukraine | WIRED

Russia’s systems were not “very mobile, not very distributed,” Clark told WIRED. Their relatively small number of large systems, says Clarke, “were not really up to the task.”

Moscow’s strategy assumed that there would be a relatively static battlespace. At the front they would deploy Infaunaheavy armored vehicle targeting radio communications. Further, about 15 miles from the front line, they would send Learn-3a six-wheeled truck capable of not only jamming cellular networks but intercepting communications and even relay SMS to nearby mobile phones. Even further, from a range of about 180 miles, the size of a fire truck Beauty-4 will encode air sensors.

“When you get close to the front, you get electronic time,” says Clark. “Your GPS won’t work, your cell phone won’t work, your Starlink won’t work.”

This electromagnetic no man’s land is what happens when you “barrage,” Clark explains. But there’s a big trade-off, he says. Full-spectrum jamming requires more power, as does jamming over a wider geographic area. The more power a system has, the bigger it needs to be. So you can disrupt all communications in the target area or some communications farther away, but not necessarily both.

Move fast and jam things up

The Russian army was marred early in the war by poor communication, poorer planning, and a general sluggishness to adapt. However, there was a big lead. “Unfortunately, the enemy has a numerical and material advantage,” a representative of UP Innovations, a Ukrainian technology startup, told WIRED in a written statement.

So Ukraine developed two complementary strategies: to produce a large volume of cheaper EW solutions and to make them iterative and adaptable.

Ukraine’s Bukovel-AD anti-drone system, for example, fits comfortably in the back of a pickup truck. The Ether system, the size of a suitcase, can detect jamming signals from Russian radio-electronic defense systems, allowing Ukraine to target them with artillery. Ukrainian electronic warfare company Kvertus already produces 15 different anti-drone systems, from backpacks to jam drones to stationary devices that can be installed on radio towers to repel approaching UAVs.

When the full-scale war began in 2022, Kvertus had one product: a shoulder-mounted anti-drone gun like the EDM4S. “In 2022 (we were producing) dozens of devices,” Yaroslav Filimonov, CEO of Kvertus, told me when we sat down in his Kiev offices this March. “In 2023 there were hundreds. now? There are thousands.”