Russia’s systems “weren’t very mobile or very distributed,” Clark tells WIRED. Their relatively small number of large systems, Clark says, “weren’t really relevant to the fight.”
Moscow’s strategy assumed that there would be a relatively static battle space. Along the front, they would deploy the Infaunaa heavily armored vehicle that targets radio communications. Further away, about 15 miles from the front lines, they would send the Read-3a six-wheeled truck capable of not only interfering with cellular networks but also intercepting communications and even Relay SMS to nearby mobile phones. Even further, at a distance of about 180 miles, the size of a fire truck Krasukha-4 would encode the aerial sensors.
“When 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 won’t work.”
This electromagnetic no man’s land is what happens when an “attack” is carried out, Clark explains. But there is a big trade-off, he says. Interference across the entire spectrum requires more power, as does interference over a wider geographic area. The more power a system has, the larger it must be. So you can disrupt all communications in a specific area or some communications further away, but not necessarily both.
Move fast and jam things
The Russian military was marred, at the beginning of the war, by poor communications, worse planning, and a general slowness to adapt. Still, he had one big advantage. “Unfortunately, the enemy has a numerical and material advantage,” a representative from UP Innovations, a Ukrainian defense technology startup, told WIRED in a written statement.
So Ukraine developed two complementary strategies: produce a large volume of cheaper 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. He Ether The suitcase-sized system can detect jamming signals from Russian EW systems, allowing Ukraine to attack them with artillery. Ukrainian electronic warfare company Kvertus now makes 15 different anti-drone systems, from backpacks that jam drones to stationary devices that can be installed on radio towers to protect against incoming UAVs.
When full-scale warfare began in 2022, Kvertus had a product: a shoulder-mounted anti-drone weapon, like the EDM4S. “In 2022, (we were producing) dozens of devices,” Yaroslav Filimonov, CEO of Kvertus, told me when we sat down in his kyiv offices in March. “In 2023 there were hundreds. Now? “There are thousands.”