War in Ukraine
Starlink shut down – Russia dominates electronic warfare
Ukrainian soldiers with a 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer
© Valentyn Ogirenko / Reuters
The Russian attack in the Kharkiv area was supported by electronic warfare. The Russians are said to have succeeded in disrupting the Ukrainians’ communications with their drones, thereby paralyzing the Starlink system in the region
Shock in Ukraine: It broke during the Russian attack in the Kharkiv area Starlink system completely together. This is reported by the Washington Post. The communication and data traffic of the Ukrainian armed forces are based on the satellite system. Even the drone pilots depend on the satellites. In the area of small FPV drones, the Ukrainians can best stand up to the Russians, where they are already inferior in artillery, air force and heavy equipment such as tanks.
The US system was already disrupted during the Battle of Avdiivka. At the time it was assumed that this happened in a very primitive way. The Russians are also said to have purchased terminals on the world market. Near the front, these devices then began to trigger enormous data traffic in order to regionally overload the system. As a result, data transfer rates collapsed for the Ukrainians.
Starlink failed completely
The disruption near Kharkiv, on the other hand, appears to be greater. The Washington Post reports that communications from Ukraine’s 125th Territorial Defense Brigade were shut down on the morning of the Russian attack. “At a certain point we were completely blind,” said a commander of a drone unit with the call sign “Artist.” “That was the biggest problem, we didn’t see how they moved, we only worked via radio or telephone, where that still worked.” The drone feeds “simply disappeared.”
A Ukrainian soldier complained to the Financial Times about the lack of EW equipment. “What radio-electronic warfare? . . . We didn’t have any. I don’t even want to remember the days in the trenches. Our boys were dropping like flies.” The new Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov has also recognized the importance of electronic warfare. In one of his first statements, he promised to massively improve the supply of drones and jamming devices to the troops.
This is not the only success of the Russians in the field of electronic warfare. In recent weeks it has become known that smart weapons supplied by the West have drastically lost their effectiveness. The American Excalibur grenades actually hit their target exactly, but the Russians manage to disrupt the grenade’s location. Their hit rate is said to have fallen to six percent. Much was expected of the GLSDB (Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb), but in fact they are hardly ever used.
Russian advantage
The Russian dominance in electronic warfare is hardly surprising. Even in the USSR, attempts were made to counteract American precision weapons. Analyst Lee Slusher writes: “Since the start of the war in Donbass, Russia has experimented and fine-tuned for nearly a decade, most recently in operations against NATO systems. In contrast, the US and NATO have lagged behind for various reasons.” Another problem for Ukraine: NATO’s advanced EW capabilities are air-based and are therefore not available to Kiev.
Mike Nagata, a former lieutenant general in the US Army, was harsh in his judgment. The US military is still lagging behind its potential adversary: ”The gap between where the United States should be and where we are, in my opinion, is widening, not everywhere, but in far too many places.”
Russian precision weapons
Electronic warfare combat is extremely dynamic. Every measure is counteracted by the other side after a short time. This dynamic is becoming a problem for Ukraine. The Starlink system is essentially civilian, commercial in nature and operates worldwide. It is difficult to imagine that this system will be continuously modified to meet the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
But that wasn’t the only bad surprise in the Kharkiv region. Russia has equipped Granat-4 drones to mark targets with a laser. Tanks, artillery pieces and even trenches were then hit by Krasnopol-type precision grenades. In addition, Russian drones prevented the establishment of effective defensive positions. They work up to about 15 kilometers behind the front. Therefore, no real fortifications could be built directly on the border. The soldiers were able to dig in with spades, but larger equipment such as excavators and concrete mixers were identified and attacked by the Russians.
Sources: Washington Post, business insiders, Defense One