Invisible Russia-Ukraine Battleground | Wired

Clark tells Wired that Russia’s systems “were not very mobile, not very distributed.” Their relatively small bulk systems, Clark says, “were not really adequate in combat.”

Moscow’s strategy assumed that there would be a relatively stable battleground. Along the front, they will deploy InfaunaA heavily armored vehicle that targets radio communications. Further, about 15 miles from the front lines, they would send Lear-3A six-wheeled truck is capable of not only jamming cellular networks, but disrupting communications and even Relaying SMS to nearby cell phones. Even further, from a range of about 180 miles, the size of a fire-truck Krasukha-4 Will destroy the aerial sensors.

“When you get close to the front, you get electronic weather,” 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 is a big trade-off, he says. Jamming across the spectrum requires more power, as does jamming over a wide geographic area. The more power a system has, the bigger it should be. So you can disrupt all communications in a target area, or eliminate some communications from the front—but not necessarily both.

Move fast and jam things

Russia’s military was marred early in the war by poor communications, bad planning, and a general sluggishness in adapting. Still, it had a huge beginning. “Unfortunately, the enemy has a numerical and material advantage,” a representative for UP Innovations, a Ukrainian defense technology startup, tells Wired in a written statement.

Ukraine therefore developed two complementary strategies: produce a large quantity of cheap EW solutions, and iterate and adapt them.

Ukraine’s Bukovel-AD anti-drone system, for example, fits comfortably in the back of a pickup truck. The the 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 produces 15 different anti-drone systems—from drone-jamming backpacks to stationary devices that can be installed on radio towers to intercept 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] Tens of devices,” Yaroslav Filimonov, CEO of Coverts, told me when we sat in his Kyiv offices this March. “In 2023 it was hundreds. now? It’s thousands. “

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