Russia-Ukraine War Disrupts Western Electronic Warfare Strategies

Russia's intense electronic warfare campaign against Ukraine is upending how Western air forces think about their own needs and operational strategies.

For decades, the goal of electronic warfare (EW) was largely to keep crewed platforms safe. But that emphasis might no longer be sufficient in an era when Russian EW efforts have caused GPS-guided munitions to miss their targets amid an overlapping web of sophisticated air defenses.

• Ukraine’s need to adapt on the battlefield drives focus on “prototype warfare"
• Germany eyes electronic warfare trust fund for Kyiv

“EW is a vital part of their military,” German Navy Cmdr. Malte von Spreckelsen of the Cyber and Information Domain Service said at the Association of Old Crows’ annual Europe symposium in Rome in early May. “They try every day to get dominance in the electromagnetic spectrum [EMS].” Von Spreckelsen said Western countries need to draw lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war to prepare for potential future conflict.

That is starting to happen. “EMS operations have been about platform survivability and protection,” Royal Air Force Squadron Leader John McFadden, who heads the UK’s Air and Space Warfare Center’s EMS operations cell, said at the gathering. “What Ukraine has shown us is that we need to change the emphasis toward protecting the effect of getting through the environment and onto the target,” he said.

There are ways to crack the problem, McFadden said. Timing the employment of a variety of nonkinetic effects with that of a weapon can saturate an adversary’s surveillance net and decision loops, creating a narrow window of opportunity for the attacking system to make it through air defenses.

That is only one of several lessons Western military officials at the event said they were drawing from the Russia-Ukraine war as they observe EW effects evolving. Russia has employed so many jammers that Ukrainian weapons can be in the line of sight of 10 or more at the same time, causing them to miss their target—often by a lot. Complicating matters, Ukraine’s efforts to jam Russian systems sometimes backfire and affect its own weapons prelaunch. As a result, military officials are calling for a better way to manage the electromagnetic battlefield.

Von Spreckelsen noted that Ukraine has demonstrated prowess in its front-line EW efforts, but because the country relies on a hodgepodge of equipment that has been developed, bought or donated, it has suffered “a lot of EW friendly fire” in which systems interfere with one another.

The speed at which new systems are entering the battlefield and then becoming obsolete is also influencing military planners. Novel jamming techniques are coming online rapidly,  sometimes in as little as 10 days.

That pace of change is driving interest in “prototype warfare,” or “disruptive warfare.” Under that concept, which Ukraine has demonstrated, a military introduces equipment fresh out of the laboratory—or at Technology Readiness Level 5—directly into combat to assess its utility rather than waiting for extensive user testing.

One example in Ukraine is the tactic of employing a weather balloon with a metal reflector to mimic a specific radar cross-section that fools Russian air defense operators into sending an expensive surface-to-air missile after a modified balloon that costs only about $25. As Russia recognizes what is happening, Ukraine can modify the balloons with electronic payloads to recreate the effect.

Several countries have established a coalition to support Kyiv’s EW campaign. The German-led group, first floated in March and set up formally in April, also includes the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, the UK and Ukraine. Germany is considering setting up a trust fund to finance the equipment.

“I have a shopping list from Ukraine,” von Spreckelsen said. “One thing is crucial: time.”

The trust fund enables countries to contribute when they lack the equipment to address Ukrainian needs, he said. Kyiv has particularly emphasized counterdrone systems, he said, although some requests may be overly specific. Rather than ask for specific tools, it would be better if the country stated what capabilities it needs. “It would make it easier to actually deliver what they need for them,” von Spreckelsen said.

In addition to equipment, the coalition intends to work with Ukraine on training, education, policy and doctrine to enhance the country’s EW expertise for the long term, beyond the immediate battlefield experience.

The war is also driving a growing recognition of how electronic and space warfare are becoming intertwined, said Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, commander of the German Air Force’s Space Command. Russia’s persistent GPS jamming hinders the operations of EW ground systems that rely on navigation and timing signals.

Moreover, Russian EW systems, such as the powerful ground-based Krasukha-4 used against ground and airborne targets, “could be . . . jamming satellite links as well,” Traut suggested. That adds to other threats to spacecraft, including Russian and Chinese maneuvering satellites and anti-satellite weapons. “We need to be able to do something about it,” Traut said.

The growing threat to space systems is driving demand for satellites to have self-protection capabilities and greater resilience, he added. “I would really like to see every future or present space system, not only satellite but the whole system, be put up, including some self-protection efforts built in,” he said. “We are under threat.”

In addition to equipping satellites with sensors, those systems can be made harder to disrupt. Multi-satellite constellations are less susceptible to being degraded by interference than single-spacecraft designs. Small laser-communications payloads on those satellites could provide link redundancy when radio frequency communications are jammed, he said.

Traut also suggested satellites could carry extra fuel to maneuver when under attack or to respond to the threat. “There are several levels of resilience and self-protection that I would like to have built into the systems,” he said. “We need to protect and defend.”

Traut also stressed a need to figure out what China’s spaceplane, known as Shenlong, does when it deploys and collects payloads.

“What if we could launch or have some nice little satellites up there that are agile and go after some satellites we feel need to be inspected? Some sort of space police,” he suggested.

Traut noted that potential adversaries also rely on space systems. “I’m pretty much interested in an opportunity to interfere with adversary systems as well,” he told the gathering.

Italian Air Force Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Luca Goretti said that Russia and China might not be as exposed if one or more of their satellites go offline. The West has very capable systems but relatively few. The Russians and Chinese can absorb the loss of spacecraft because they can make up for that with mass.