Russian electronic warfare makes the US and its allies 'startled'

The Russia-Ukraine war has startled the US and the West into re-evaluating electronic warfare (EW), a field they had "forgotten" for many years when they only had to confront local Iraqi gunmen or Taliban terrorists.

Russia's Sukhoi Su-34 twin-engine long-range strike aircraft, nicknamed “Fullback,” has been upgraded with new protection against enemy electronic warfare equipment, including foreign-made electronic warfare protection layers used in Ukraine, Ria Novosti news agency reported recently.

“Su-34 aircraft operate near special combat zones to drop guided bombs, so they are in the sights of enemy electronic warfare equipment. The Russian military has taken technical measures to protect Su-34 systems from Ukrainian and Western electronic weapons,” the article quoted.

Russia's Moskit electronic warfare UAV model developed based on Orlan-10

Invisible to radar

Conventional Su-34s are equipped with the Khibiny electronic countermeasures complex with active jamming stations SAP-14 and SAP-518, which significantly enhances the ability to reliably protect Russian fighters from enemy air defense systems.

Meanwhile, military analysts say the Su-34s delivered since July 2022 (after the Russia-Ukraine war broke out) have been built to advanced standards as the Su-34M variant specialized for electronic warfare or reconnaissance.

General Director of Russian aircraft manufacturer United Aircraft Corporation Yuri Slyusar announced that the Su-34M has twice the combat capability of the original Su-34, which has been in service since 2014. The new variant's features include three different types of sensors: the UKR-RT electronic search cluster, the UKR-OE camera cluster and the UKR-RL synthetic aperture radar, which help pilots maximize situational awareness when controlling the Su-34M.

US and NATO complacency

Since 1888, when German physicist Heinrich Hertz demonstrated that electric sparks could transmit signals into space, militaries around the world have begun using this technology to improve the efficiency of communication, navigation, targeting, or battlefield scanning.

Moscow developed the Su-34M line specifically to perform electronic warfare and intelligence reconnaissance missions.

Experts say there is a standard procedure in professional militaries around the world, which is to collect information about enemy electronic warfare and “calibrate” their own EW suite according to the obtained parameters.

However, NATO’s electronic warfare capabilities have declined alarmingly over the years. The US and its allies have not faced significant challenges from the enemy during their time in Afghanistan. The GPS and Blue Force Tracker systems (which help distinguish friendly forces) have been maintained throughout, making these countries complacent.

EW concepts such as radio discipline, electromagnetic signature control, and frequency hopping have lost their value, even as Russia and China have made great strides in EW.

Russia's EW Power

In November 2022, Moscow introduced a lightweight unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system called “Moskit” (also known as Moskito or Mosquito) based on the Orlan-10 and claimed to have successfully jammed Kiev’s communications, underscoring Russia’s ability to quickly absorb lessons from the battlefield and improve its weapons technology at a breakneck pace.

Previously, in 2014, Russia announced that it had successfully disabled the radar system of the US Navy destroyer USS Donald Cook using Khibiny active jamming transmitters equipped on Su-24 “Fencer” fighter jets. The country said that it had flown over the US warship more than 12 times without being detected.

According to the Vesti news program (part of the Russian TV channel Rossiya-1), the Su-24 approached the Cook, “activated powerful radio electronic jamming equipment, disabling all of the ship’s systems.” The Pentagon later issued a statement condemning the dangerous and unprofessional behavior of the Russian pilots when they repeatedly flew low in front of the US Navy destroyer.

Neither side mentioned electronic warfare, but the US side said the USS Cook was capable of defending itself against the Su-24s. Observers said the Cook warship may have turned off its EW system to avoid signals intelligence (SIGINT) activities from the Russian side.

“The importance of the electromagnetic and electromagnetic spectrum is such that an army can be completely paralyzed if its electronic equipment is attacked. The most commonly used electronic warfare techniques are jamming (electronic countermeasures) and eavesdropping on enemy communications (signals intelligence),” an Indian army official said.

(According to EurAsian Times)

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