Electronic Warfare in the Air Domain: Russia vs Ukraine
Summary
TLDRThe script delves into the strategic use of electronic warfare (EW) by Russia, tracing its roots to the Soviet era and examining its application in conflicts involving Ukraine. It highlights the initial success in establishing air superiority and the challenges faced due to uncoordinated EW efforts that hindered their ground operations. The discussion emphasizes the importance of EW in modern warfare, its interplay with space-based systems, and the need for Western militaries to prioritize it, given its invisible yet decisive impact on situational awareness and force connectivity.
Takeaways
- 🇷🇺 Russian military doctrine emphasizes electronic warfare (EW) to neutralize one-third of an enemy's combat force, impacting the remaining two-thirds.
- 📚 The history of EW in the Soviet Union and its legacy is significant, influencing both Russian and Ukrainian military strategies.
- 🔄 Russia has a long-standing enthusiasm for EW, with its first use traced back to the early 20th century during the Russo-Japanese War.
- 🛡 EW was integral to Russia's initial attack on Ukraine, aiming to blind defenses and interfere with command and control.
- ✈️ Russian EW efforts were partly successful in limiting Ukrainian air force capabilities but were also uncoordinated, affecting their own operations.
- 📵 Russian forces faced issues with command and control due to reliance on civilian communication devices, which were vulnerable to jamming.
- 🎯 Ukrainian forces exploited Russian weaknesses in EW, eavesdropping and jamming their communications, and using direction finding for targeting.
- 🚀 Anti-radiation missiles were used by Russia to attack Ukrainian radars, contributing to the suppression of air defenses.
- 🛬 Despite initial success, Russia failed to completely destroy Ukrainian air defenses, which adapted and continued to operate.
- 🔒 Russia has reportedly targeted and attempted to decrypt Ukrainian and NATO communications, with varying degrees of success.
- 🤖 The conflict has seen a shift in EW focus from strategic to more operational and tactical levels, with an emphasis on creating temporary permissive environments for air strikes.
- 📡 EW's role in jamming or spoofing radar and communications continues to be crucial, highlighting the ongoing invisible conflict over the electromagnetic spectrum.
Q & A
What is the simple Russian military principle mentioned in the script regarding electronic warfare?
-The principle states that if you can trick, jam, or use electronic warfare to affect one-third of an opposing force, the remaining two-thirds will cease to be militarily effective.
How does the script describe the history of electronic warfare in Russia and its relation to Ukraine?
-The script mentions that Russia has a long history of electronic warfare dating back to before the Soviet Union, and this history is important because the Ukrainian military legacy is also tied to the Soviet Union, suggesting a shared knowledge base and tactical innovation in electronic warfare.
What was the initial Russian strategy involving electronic warfare during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine?
-The initial strategy involved using electronic warfare to blind Ukrainian defenses and interfere with their command and control as part of an offensive counter air operation (OCA) to destroy the Ukrainian Air Force and suppress air defenses.
How did Russia's use of electronic warfare affect Ukrainian fixed radar installations and air defenses?
-Several Ukrainian fixed radar installations were destroyed, and air defenses, including fighter aircraft, had to disperse, limiting their ability to react to the Russian attack.
What were some of the issues with Russia's electronic warfare efforts during the initial invasion?
-The script points out that Russian electronic warfare efforts were uncoordinated and sometimes interfered with their own ground operations, which the Ukrainian Armed Forces exploited.
How did the Ukrainian Armed Forces exploit weaknesses in Russia's electronic warfare?
-The Ukrainian Armed Forces exploited these weaknesses by eavesdropping on unencrypted transmissions, jamming communications, and performing targeting for long-range weapons using direction-finding techniques.
What shift occurred in Russia's electronic warfare operations after the initial invasion period?
-The script indicates a shift from strategic goals to more operational and tactical ones, with Russia relying on standoff attacks and using electronic warfare to support air strikes and create temporary permissive environments.
What is the significance of electronic warfare in the context of UAV operations?
-Electronic warfare has been used to target UAV operations, contributing to mounting UAV losses, and it is reported that both Russia and Ukraine have had success in jamming key systems related to UAVs.
How has the conflict between Russia and Ukraine influenced the understanding of electronic warfare's role in modern warfare?
-The conflict has highlighted electronic warfare as an integral part of warfare, emphasizing the need for Western militaries to prioritize it and consider its impact on areas such as space and navigation.
What are the main takeaways from the Russian-Ukrainian War regarding electronic warfare?
-The main takeaways include the integral role of electronic warfare in modern conflict, the connection between electronic warfare and space, and the importance of situational awareness and force cohesion in the context of electronic warfare.
What is the significance of the book 'Tang assault' mentioned in the script?
-The book 'Tang assault' is a faithful translation of a Soviet combat manual for armored and mechanized warfare, providing insight into Soviet tank warfare tactics that may influence current fighting methods in the Russian-Ukrainian War.
Outlines
🇷🇺 Russian Electronic Warfare Principles and Tactics
This paragraph discusses the historical and ongoing significance of electronic warfare (EW) in Russian military strategy. It highlights the Russian principle of affecting one-third of an enemy's force through EW to render the rest ineffective. The paragraph traces the origins of Russian EW back to the Soviet Union and notes its integration with ground forces. It also touches on the initial stages of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, where EW was used to blind Ukrainian defenses and interfere with command and control. The paragraph concludes by pointing out the uncoordinated nature of Russian EW efforts, which sometimes interfered with their own operations and were exploited by the Ukrainian forces.
🚀 Evolution of Russian EW Strategy and Its Impact
The second paragraph delves into the evolution of Russia's EW strategy from the initial invasion phase to the subsequent period. It contrasts Russia's initial success in establishing air superiority through an EW-assisted offensive counter air operation with the ground offensive's less successful outcome. The paragraph notes that while Russia maintained a stronger air position, it shifted its focus from strategic to more operational and tactical EW efforts. It also mentions Russia's targeting of navigational systems like Starlink and the interception of Ukrainian communications. The paragraph ends with a brief mention of a new publication related to Soviet combat tactics, suggesting a connection between historical and current military approaches.
📡 The Importance of Electronic Warfare in Modern Conflicts
The final paragraph emphasizes the integral role of EW in modern warfare, drawing lessons from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. It points out that EW was previously a backbench issue for Western militaries but has now come to the forefront due to the demonstrated threats. The paragraph also discusses the connection between EW and space, particularly the reliance on satellites for communication and navigation, and the potential vulnerabilities this presents. It concludes by stressing the invisibility of successful EW and its critical role in providing situational awareness and operational advantages, thereby influencing tactical, operational, and strategic outcomes.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Electronic Warfare (EW)
💡Offensive Counter Air (OCA)
💡Jamming
💡Anti-Radiation Missiles
💡Soviet Union
💡Deconfliction
💡Command and Control (C2)
💡Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
💡Direction Finding
💡Situational Awareness
💡Multi-Domain Operations
Highlights
Russia follows a simple military principle of electronic warfare (EW) to neutralize one-third of an opposing force.
Russian EW history dates back to the Soviet Union and influences Ukrainian military tactics.
Russians are known for their enthusiasm in using EW, with a history of first-ever EW use in the Russo-Japanese War.
EW is integrated with ground forces to trick, jam, or neutralize enemy capabilities.
Russia's initial attack in 2022 used EW to blind Ukrainian defenses and interfere with command and control.
Russian EW was successful in destroying Ukrainian radar installations and limiting air defense reactions.
EW efforts by Russia were uncoordinated, sometimes interfering with their own operations.
Ukrainian forces exploited Russian EW weaknesses by eavesdropping and jamming communications.
Russian EW shifted from strategic to operational and tactical goals after the initial invasion period.
Russia uses EW to support air strikes and create temporary permissive environments.
Ukraine has had success in jamming key Russian systems and capturing high-value EW assets.
EW's success is often invisible, making it difficult to assess its impact on operations.
EW is integral to modern warfare, influencing situational awareness, force cohesion, and battlespace shaping.
The Russian-Ukrainian conflict highlights the importance of dominating the electromagnetic spectrum.
EW's role in space and its connection to navigation and communication systems is emphasized.
The war exemplifies the need for EW and space considerations in modern military strategy.
The transcript discusses the launch of a new publication on Soviet combat manual for armored and mechanized warfare.
The importance of EW in establishing air superiority and its impact on tactical, operational, and strategic levels is underscored.
Transcripts
they follow a very simple Russian
military principle which says if you ATT
trick onethird of an opposing force uh
if you jam one third of an opposing
force or use electronic warfare then the
remaining third of that combat force
will cease to become militarily
affected Russia has a long history of
electronic warfare that dates to before
the Soviet Union but especially it took
off in the USSR the history of ew in the
Soviet Union is important not only
because it shapes the Russian approach
but because of course the Ukrainian
military Legacy is also tied to the
Soviet Union so we can expect them to
have with of course changes and tactical
Innovation just like on the Russian side
across time and space a similar knowhow
and a way of framing ew in operations
Russians particularly are enthusiastic
you users of electronic warfare they
always have been they're credited with
the first ever use of electronic warfare
during the Russo Japanese war in the
early 20th century and they place place
a very high emphasis on integrating
electronic warfare with their ground
forces units and they do this because
they follow a very simple Russian
military principle which says if you ATT
trick onethird of an opposing force uh
if you jam onethird of an opposing Force
so use electronic warfare then the
remaining third of that combat force
will cease to become militarily affected
now this doesn't matter in Russian
military thinking whether it's a squad
of say five troops platoon of 10 troops
or whether it's a core or an army the
principle Remains the Same so Russia's
been using Ew with varying degrees of
success alongside its land forces not
only since the 2022 Invasion began but
also since the first invasion of Ukraine
in
2014 for this one it serves to make a
quick timeline into ew operations in
Ukraine there is no clear delimitation
between different periods except for one
and that's the main shift in ew
operations after the initial Invasion so
let's contrast an initial period of
invasion in 2022 with the period that
followed and then zoom out to talk about
the wider experiences and the Lessons
Learned at the NATO level remember of
course that with every week and month we
know more and more about what happened
in the past months of the war so this
video sums up the situation based on
present information the initial Russian
attack saw a lot of Russian ew activity
to Blind Ukrainian defenses and
interfere with their command and control
as part of an offensive counter a
operation OCA to then destroy the
Ukrainian Air Force and suppress
Ukrainian air defenses in this they were
successful several Ukrainian fixed radar
installations were destroyed and air
defenses at fighter aircraft had to
quickly disperse which limited their
ability to react to the Russian attack
Russia has been using electronic warfare
as an integral part of its air campaign
against the Ukrainian Air Force part of
that Dimension includes the use of
electronic warfare and electronic
warfare has been used by the Russians um
primarily to try and jam Ukrainian
Radars to try and jam Ukrainian radio
communications as part of that OCA
effort now not strictly electronic
warfare but I would argue it falls
within the ew remit the Russians have
also been using anti-radiation missiles
anti- radar missiles um which they're
launching from their aircraft and
they're trying to attack Ukrainian uh
Radars on the ground with that and the
reason being for that is to try and
reduce the effectiveness of the
Ukrainian air defense system ultimately
Russia was on successful in achieving
their goal of destroying the Ukrainian
Air Force and Ukrainian air defenses it
also appears that Russian ew efforts
were uncoordinated and interfering with
their own ground operation and this was
exploited by the Ukrainian Armed Forces
weaknesses in command and control
compounded Russia's inability to gain
control of the air a lack of planning
and preparedness coupled with
procurement and encryption key
distribution issues forced many units to
use civilian handheld radios and mobile
phones instead of cure Jam resistant
tactical radios Additionally the failure
to deconflict ew activities with the
rest of their operations led to
unintentional jamming of their own
forces Ukrainian ew forces exploited
these weaknesses by eavesdropping on
Russia's unencrypted Transmissions
jamming their Communications and
Performing targeting for long-range
weapons using Direction finding
techniques the most important takeaway
from this initial period is that in the
air domain the Russian Russian Aerospace
forces the vks followed the rule book
and made an allout effort to establish
air superiority through an ew assisted
OCA campaign and they could have turned
that air superiority then into Air
Supremacy allowing tvk to strike
Ukrainian positions with impunity for a
few days they succeeded and this success
contrast sharply with the ground
offensive however ultimately they did
not destroy the vast majority of
Ukrainian aircraft and air defenses
which dispersed reset and took up the f
and this sets up the next
phase throughout 2002 and in 2003 Russia
remains in a stronger position in the
air at least on paper it appears unable
or unwilling to press disadvantage
Russia appears to conduct successful ew
on a tactical and operational level but
it does not mount a similar ew effort as
in the initial weeks of the invasion
instead the airb has shifted from
strategic goals to operational and
tactical ones and Russia relies on
standoff attacks and where possible it
uses ew of course to support air strikes
in order to create a temporary
permissive environment in which then the
Ukrainian communication systems its
radar and also its uavs are targeted for
this Russia uses ground and Airbase
systems with ew Russia has targeted
navigational systems starlink and is
reported to have intercepted and
decrypted Ukrainian Communications it is
presently unknown how widespread or
comprehensive this success is
additionally Russia started to Target
UAV operations with ew quite early on
contributing to mounting UAV losses
there are also reported incidents that
Russia attempted to jam NATO ISR
aircrafts or intelligence surveillance
and reconnaissance aircraft that flew
over the black C at the same time it is
reported that Ukraine had similar
success but much less is known about
their ew efforts because most reports
that we get in the west are focusing on
Russia alone the introduction of Russian
Counter UAV systems appears to influence
Ukrainian UAV operations though again
this is not something that is that often
reported on it is however reported that
Ukraine had success in jaming key
Russian systems such as A50 and aox
table aircraft and they have also
destroyed some key ew aircraft on the
ground crucially too some Russian ew
systems appear to have been captured
Ukraine has captured several high value
Russian ew assets during the conflict
and is reported to have handed these
over to Allied Nations for technical
intelligence purposes ew remains
important in jamming or spoofing radar
and Communications as well as tapping
into radio communications of the
opposing side it remains unclear how
extensive or successful these efforts
are but given that ew is continuously
used and adapts to threats like uavs
this invisible conflict over the
electromagnetic spectrum is here to
stay and this brings us to what
experiences and lessons we can currently
draw from the Russian Ukrainian War
regarding ew before we jump into that a
quick announcement that we are
celebrating the launch of a new
publication Tang assault in our book
series and you can get this one plus all
the other books that we have already out
there add 15% off during our launch toil
the new book is a faithful translation
of the Soviet combat manual for well
armored and mechanized Warfare and this
book provides you with a really
unprecedented insight into Soviet tank
warfare which may even influence some of
the Russian and perhaps even the
Ukrainian ways of fighting in the war
right now until March 2024 this book is
available in The Limited bilingual
Edition so check it out and pick it up
at 15% off with all the other very
well-received books that we have on
German World War II tank and infantry
tactics as well as our hugely successful
book on the stuga and the is-2 now let's
talk about the main takeaways I'll be
focusing on ew as a whole rather than
the smaller tactical issues so that we
don't get lost in the detail first off
ew is an integral part of warfare yeah
Russia's initial success clearly shows
the dangers of ew This is not one of
those obvious lessons if you talk to
people in NATO and different Air Forces
and read what they write before the war
and now they will straight out say and
admit that ew for a long time was a
backbench issue Western militaries
enjoyed connectivity permissive
operational environments and very
limited adversary capabilities in the ew
domain since the Cold War ended and and
the last time the the West let's say
really had to worry about all of this
was during the cold of War maybe Co in
Kosovo as well but in those operations
it wasn't really Irrelevant in the end
but that is more than 20 years ago
second ew and space now this is new
couple of people I know in the space
domain will have face fed right now I'm
got to get some angry messages what I
want to say is that the Russian
Ukrainian war is a contemporary example
of why we need to think more about ew
and space now those two things have
already been connected for a long time
but you know our navigation or
communication systems depend on it like
think about a task force in the Pacific
what does it rely on for communication
and navigation well satellites lose the
satellites to jamming or have them fed
even with the wrong data like wrong
positional data or even metrological
data and then Houston we you've got a
problem and this links to my third point
this is the age-old problem of ew we
don't see ew's success yeah ew is
slippery it is in constant flocks it is
a game of chess as somebody once told me
without rules that does not advertise
success because that could actually
sabotage future operations but crucially
it doesn't go boom and boom is important
because we can see boom take UAV
operations in Ukraine we can see the
kinetic application
no one shows that 95 out of 100 cases
uavs are used for reconnaissance and
Fire Control because that just doesn't
do well on social media ew has the same
problem when it works it's invisible
when it doesn't work it's invisible or
another example when there is a choice
between a set of high output antennas
receivers transmitters that are all
installed in some ungainly looking
Caravan or we can have a new tank or
aircraft where will our eyes
go it's probably not going to be the
Caravan but that's just my guess when it
comes down to it however we need
navigational data we need situational
data we need communication and we need
to make sure that the adversary doesn't
have it the side that dominates ew is
going to be one step ahead it operates
with an advantage in situational
awareness Force cohesion connectivity
battles space shaping multi-domain
operations and all the other buzzwords
you can think about and yes that site
will reap the benefits on the Tactical
operational and strategic level big
thank you here to patrons and channel
members for your support remember also
that book sale that is currently going
on with a hefty discount on all our
Books available for sale at the moment
and also thank you to Andrew and Bernard
cast from military history visualized
for their fire support on this video I
hope all of you have a great one and see
you in the sky
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