Deep Dive: How Ukraine outclassed U.S. in electronic warfare

BLUF: Ukraine is outdoing Western-made E.W. systems based on vast experience gained from the battlefield. Kyiv-based Night Watch recently developed the Lima system, which can counter Russian glide bombs.

Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine has spurred the expansion of, and major innovation in, the Ukrainian electronic warfare sector—to the extent that Ukrainian E.W. firms and practitioners are now among the best in the world, even rivalling or outperforming their Western equivalents.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are waging electronic warfare on an unprecedented scale as Russia’s wider war on Ukraine grinds into its fourth year. Both sides relentlessly target the electromagnetic spectrum with the aim of muting communications, jamming drones and radars, and thwarting precision-guided munitions. 

Given the intensity of the electronic combat, Ukraine should serve as a warning for Western governments and industries that have neglected E.W. for years—and as an opportunity for these same governments and industries to test and refine E.W. systems, readying them in case the war escalates … and spreads.

But they’re not. At least, not on any meaningful scale that’s obvious to outside observers.

Ukraine’s rapid development and American neglect in the E.W. sphere

The United States, the United Kingdom, and Turkey donated a few jammers to Ukraine early in the wider war, but since 2023 — the year the electronic battle seemingly intensified — the Ukrainians have fought alone more and more: developing, building, and deploying their own increasingly sophisticated jammers. 

These Ukrainian jammers are now some of the best in the world.

“Frankly, they are well ahead of us in many of the technical aspects of the war,” said Ben Hodges, a retired United States Army general who commanded U.S. Army forces in Europe until late 2017. 

The U.S. Army badly neglected esoteric E.W. in the decades immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

“We had lost much of our competence and capability in E.W.,” Hodges conceded.

Simply stated, electronic warfare is any effort to disrupt the enemy’s radio signals. These signals flood the modern battlefield. Radars scan for targets. Almost all of the tens of thousands of drones that take flight over the front line every day send and receive signals from their operators. Vehicle crew, pilots, and even individual precision-guided munitions connect via radio to navigation satellites. 

There’s an electronic countermeasure for each of these systems. Aerial jamming pods clutter radar operators’ screens. Man-portable and vehicle-mounted radio noisemakers drown out drones’ command signals, sending them tumbling to the ground. GPS-spoofers feed bad data to winged glide bombs and cause them to veer off target. The most aggressive information cyberattacks can hack into enemy systems via their radio receivers.

In 2022 and 2023, the U.S., U.K., and Turkey donated to Ukraine an unspecified quantity of unspecified E.W. equipment. But by 2023, it was apparent the Ukrainians were clearly taking the lead on their own electronic defense. 

When European-donated Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters began arriving in Ukraine late last year with old Northrop Grumman-made AN/ALQ-131 radar-jamming pods, they may have been the exception to the rule: On the ground if not in the air, Ukraine probably no longer needed a lot of help jamming Russian radars. 

It had learned the hard way to jam on its own—and refined its technology and practices in the most demanding conditions possible. 

“Frankly, there is no better testing environment than actual combat—same for training,” said Jeffrey Fischer, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and a board member in the electronic warfare industry's Association of Old Crows.

“I don’t think we have ever seen E.W. at this scale and intensity for such a duration,” said Noah Sylvia, a researcher with the Royal United Services Institute in London. “Both sides have to advance and adapt or risk being outmatched in spectrum operations quickly.” 

Should we really expect Western E.W. developers to keep up when the stakes for them are less than existential? 

How Western developers can catch up to Ukraine in E.W.

That’s not to say some smaller Western companies aren’t testing E.W. equipment in Ukraine. Fischer said he’s aware of three foreign E.W. firms conducting trials in Ukraine, although he said he was not allowed to say which. 

And it’s likely that the leading Western E.W. firms—BAE Systems, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, among others— are at least closely observing. Counteroffensive.Pro contacted all five companies regarding whether they were testing in Ukraine, but had not received a reply as of press time. 

Generally, however, Western governments are all coming to appreciate “the size and speed of innovation cycles needed for large-scale multi-domain operations, the need for resilience in operating procedures to working in a degraded [electronic] environment and greater need for training all units to operate in cooperation with E.W. units,” Sylvia said. 

Just don’t expect Western officials to say much about their direct involvement in the electronic fighting, however minimal it might be by now. 

“Many U.S. drone companies are on the record about lessons learned [from Ukraine],” said Samuel Bendett, a Russia expert with the nonprofit research group CNA in Virginia, adding that he has “heard much less about that from E.W. companies.”

Secrecy and a weak demand signal, so to speak, might not be the only reasons there isn’t a huge public effort by Westerners to jump into the electronic fight. 

U.S. trade regulations—in particular, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which controls the export of military technologies to safeguard U.S. national security—could complicate the transfer of American jamming technology, pointed out Glenn Carlson, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and, until recently, the president of the Association of Old Crows.

Moreover, the Ukrainian spectrum “is a mess,” Carlson said. “Everyone’s trying to talk and everyone’s trying to jam.” And they—the Russians and Ukrainians—are all doing so with similar equipment and processes rooted in Soviet tradition (read our detailed coverage of the evolution of Russian E.W. here). 

Yes, “there are opportunities” for Western E.W. developers and practitioners coming from a different tradition, Carlson said. But the challenges are daunting as both sides in the wider war are metaphorically “screaming at each other in the same rooms.” 

There’s also a chance new and sensitive technology could fall into Russian hands, Carlson pointed out. It should come as no surprise if, say, Northrop Grumman isn’t exactly eager to turn the war into a test case for some high-tech new jammer—given the risks.

Ukraine’s efforts to counter Russian glide bombs

The Ukrainians are somewhat less secretive and oblique about their domestic E.W. efforts. The Ministry of Defense in Kyiv declined to comment on jamming efforts, instead referring Counteroffensive.Pro to Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate, which didn’t respond to queries. 

But the Defense Ministry recently authorized one Ukrainian firm—Kyiv-based Night Watch—to speak openly about a new jammer it developed.

That jammer, called ‘Lima,’ blocks the satellite navigation signals that steer Russian glide bombs. “Previously, the enemy used glide bombs with high accuracy to attack objects in the territory of regional centers such as Kharkiv and Zaporizhia,” a representative of the 10-person Night Watch team said.

But then, in 2023, Night Watch deployed the first Lima jammer—and the bombs’ accuracy decreased. “Realizing the ineffectiveness of this method of destruction and the impossibility of achieving the goal, the enemy stopped shelling regional centers altogether,” the Night Watch representative said.

Lima is special—and it reflects what Hodges described as a “deep, residual technical competency in Ukraine.” 

“Lima uses artificially generated signals of all currently existing satellites as interference, as opposed to ‘white noise’ or non-intelligent interference,” the Night Watch representative explained. “More precisely, we use digital interference, which is a combination of jamming, spoofing and information cyberattack on the navigation receiver.”

Night Watch developed Lima using company money—and has apparently been cleared to talk openly about the jammer in part as a fundraising effort. With adequate financing, perhaps from one of Ukraine’s more steadfast European allies, the Kyiv team could expand what is now a boutique assembly line producing just a handful of systems. The representative said Night Watch could scale up production to as many as 300 units a month. That could cost millions of dollars.

Under brutal attack by a much bigger and richer country, Ukraine understandably doesn’t hesitate to solicit financial assistance from its allies. 

It’s telling, however, that the government in Kyiv doesn’t ask for direct donations of E.W. systems—at least, not very often or very loudly. 

Why would it? After years of brutal fighting across the electronic spectrum, the Ukrainians might be the world’s most proficient E.W. warriors outside of Russia. It’s more likely Ukraine’s allies will be the ones asking for Ukraine’s help jamming Russian radios.

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