The invisible battlefield between Russia and Ukraine | Wired

The Russian systems “were not very mobile, and they were not very distributed,” Clark told WIRED. The relatively small number of large systems “weren’t really relevant to combat,” Clark says.

Moscow’s strategy assumed that there would be a relatively static battlefield. Along the front, they will spread InfaunaIt is a heavy armored vehicle targeting radio communications. Further out, about 15 miles from the front lines, they were transmitting LER-3a six-wheeled truck capable of not only jamming cellular networks but also intercepting communications and even… Relay SMS to nearby mobile phones. Even further, from a distance of about 180 miles, it was the size of a fire truck Krasukha-4 It will scramble weather sensors.

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

This electromagnetic forbidden zone is what happens when you’re “bombed,” Clark explains. But there is a big trade-off, he says. Jamming across the spectrum requires more power, as does jamming over a wider geographic area. The more powerful the system, the larger it should be. So you can disable all communications in a targeted area, or some communications further away, but not necessarily both.

Move quickly and crowd things

The Russian military early in the war was marred by poor communications, worse planning, and a general slowness in adapting. However, she had a great start. “Unfortunately, the enemy has a numerical and material advantage,” a representative of UP Innovations, a Ukrainian defense technology startup, told WIRED in a written statement.

Thus, Ukraine has developed two complementary strategies: mass-producing cheaper electronic warfare solutions, and making them redundant and adaptable.

For example, the Ukrainian Bukovel-AD anti-drone system fits snugly into the back of a pickup truck. the Eat The system, about the size of a suitcase, can detect jamming signals from Russian electronic warfare systems, allowing Ukraine to target it with artillery. Ukrainian electronic warfare company Kvertus now manufactures 15 different anti-drone systems, from backpacks that jam drones to fixed devices that can be mounted on radio towers to ward off incoming drones.

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,” Covertus CEO Yaroslav Filimonov told me when we sat in his offices in Kiev last March. “In 2023 the number was in the hundreds. now? It’s thousands.”