How Russia Is Trying To Complicate Ukraine's Drone Defenses

Ukraine may be a powerhouse of drone production and innovation, but Russia is complicating Kyiv's largely effective efforts to dominate the skies above the war-torn country.

Ukrainian drone operators face two main challenges on the battlefield, more than two years into full-scale war, said Taras Chmut, the director of Ukraine's Come Back Alive Foundation, which supports Kyiv's military.

Ukrainian drone crews cannot launch tens of drones from the same sliver of the front line simultaneously, Chmut told Newsweek. Rather, Ukraine needs to get these drones in the air one by one — "this is a disadvantage," he said.

"The second problem is that the enemy can jam typical frequencies with typical electronic warfare equipment designed for this," Chmut added. "That's why skilled crews search for and change frequencies to suit the specific area of the front line where they operate."

"This allows them to work with more drones simultaneously," he added. Ukraine is learning from Russian electronic warfare (EW) tactics, adapting to overcome them, Kyiv says.

Wherever there is a gap in EW, more drones can take to the skies at any one time, said Samuel Bendett, of the U.S.-based think tank the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA).

"It's all about flying them at frequencies that are not jammed by EW equipment," Bendett told Newsweek.

EW is part of how Russia and Ukraine are working to combat the other's extensive drone fleets, not least the popular and ubiquitous first-person-view (FPV) drones. EW systems can interfere with the targeting of drones, jamming the signals from satellites directing the uncrewed vehicles to their destination. Drone operators are then tasked with finding workaround for counter-drone technology.

Earlier this week, a Russian military blogger said Ukrainian FPV drone operators were "already changing frequencies and ordering industrial production with this changed parameter from foreign factories."

"Our electronic warfare is not always effective against them," the blogger said in a post to the Telegram messaging app.

Drones' resistance to EW depends on the type of equipment used by an enemy force, including the frequencies they are using, said Chmut.

EW efforts can be counteracted by upping the number of frequencies used, he said.

Another Russian military blogger said on Tuesday that Moscow's FPV drones were being "suppressed by our own electronic warfare" around the captured eastern city of Avdiivka, with only around 30 percent of the uncrewed vehicles reaching the area of their targets.

Ukrainian sources have also reported that Russia's military has moved its own FPV drones to frequencies different from those often used by Ukraine's EW systems, in particular the portable versions, Bendett previously told Newsweek.

Both sides appear to believe the other is producing more FPV drones, but it is very difficult to discern true numbers, he added.

Russia has increased its drone manufacturing, pouring resources into expanding its arsenal of cheap FPV drones. Russia's FPV development has probably "grown exponentially," Bendett said in mid-December, and Moscow is now likely getting a stream of tens of thousands of FPV drones each month.

Ukraine has run several fundraisers for drones, particularly FPV uncrewed vehicles. Operation Unity—an initial push from the Come Back Alive Foundation, the state-backed United24 platform and Ukrainian online bank, Monobank—raised funds to supply thousands of drones to units across Ukraine's armed forces, special operations forces, national police and security service. A subsequent fundraiser raised the cash to buy another 5,000 armed FPV drones.

Update 3/7/2024 at 1:40 p.m. ET: This article was updated to change a headline and add a sentence about Ukraine learning from Russian EW tactics.