Electronic War
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Ukrainian Air Force official says Russia’s electronic war capability is hampering the counter offensive pleads for more Western aid and weapons
Moscow enjoys a significant advantage over Kiev in terms of electronic warfare, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yury Ignat has admitted. He cited the disparity as among the reasons why Ukraine is struggling in its long-anticipated counteroffensive.
Russian forces use electronic countermeasures to disable Ukrainian drones, an approach that Kiev wishes it could also adopt, Ignat said in a TV interview on Monday. “You don’t need to shoot down a drone with missiles or guns. You can simply force it to go down, intercept it with electronic warfare,” the official stated.
“Russia has powerful systems that interfere with the actions of our defense forces. They have plenty of those systems. Ukraine has made some progress, but we started late,” he added.
The Russian Defense Ministry regularly reports the downing of Ukrainian drones without firing a shot. A raid on Crimea on Monday involved 17 UAVs, 14 of which were disabled by jamming, according to the Russian military.
Russian electronic warfare superiority has been widely acknowledged. A study released by the Royal United Services Institute in London last November estimated that by the summer of that year, Kiev had lost 90% of the thousands of drones it possessed at the beginning of hostilities in February.
Once Russian electronic warfare infrastructure was deployed, the life expectancy of Ukrainian UAVs over the battlefield dwindled to three flights for quadcopters and six flights for fixed-wing aircraft, it said.
The issue was also highlighted at the weekend by the New York Times. Ukrainian electronic warfare troops find it difficult to jam Russia’s Lancet loitering munitions because they don’t know how exactly operators communicate with them, the newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, their opponents detect Ukrainian mobile phone signals, interfere with GPS geo positioning, and call artillery strikes on Starlink routers, which are essential for Ukrainian communications.
On Thursday the Russian military carried out missile strikes on military targets in Ukraine. The strikes, conducted over the past 24-hours, involved “long-range, air- and sea-based high-precision weapons,” Russian military said, without elaborating. The strikes targeted “command and control” centers of the Ukrainian military, as well as multiple rear repair bases, storage sites and airfields, it added.
The targeted storage facilities were used to stash “water drones, as well as missiles, weaponry and military equipment received from European countries and the US,” according to the ministry. All designated targets were successfully hit, the military stated.
Unverified footage circulating online showed multiple cruise missiles flying over western Ukraine. While Kiev routinely claims destruction of most incoming projectiles, President Vladimir Zelensky in this instance has made a rare admission, stating that “several hits” had been registered. He didn’t specify exactly which installations have been affected by the attack.
The strikes also affected multiple fuel depots, including an aviation-fuel storage facility in Ukraine’s western region of Khmelnitsky, as well as a major fuel and ammo stockpile in Zaporozhye Region, which has seen a sharp uptick in fighting over the past day.
Russian troops have repelled a major attack in the area, inflicting heavy losses on Ukrainian forces. According to the country’s military, Kiev’s troops lost more than 280 personnel, at least 25 tanks and ten infantry fighting vehicles during the battle.
Over the past week, the Russian military has ramped up long-range missile and suicide drone strikes against Ukraine, repeatedly targeting port infrastructure in the country’s south, as well as military installations in its west. The strikes come in the aftermath of a recent Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge.
The facility was targeted by two sea drones, which inflicted considerable damage to the road section of the bridge and killed two Russian civilians, a couple whose now-orphaned 14-year-old daughter was seriously wounded in the attack.
Source TASS/RuMOD/RT
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