Electronic warfare battle can be won with medium-range systems – EW company commander

Ukraine can gain the upper hand in the electronic warfare (EW) confrontation with Russian forces through the development of medium-range systems and better coordination between units.

The commander of an EW company of the 260th Territorial Defense Brigade Khortytsia, callsign “Manki”, said this in an comment to Ukrinform.

He noted that in the early years of the full-scale war, Ukraine paid insufficient attention to electronic warfare, while Russia systematically developed these capabilities over a long period.

“Enemy EW is not just powerful – it’s many times stronger, and that must be taken into account. The adversary has been developing it for a long time. They have many long-range systems that can ‘strike’ up to 45 kilometers and can jam communications over 60–80 kilometers,” the officer said.

At the same time, he believes that Ukraine can gain an advantage in the so-called “EW battle” by focusing on medium-range complexes. One example he cited is the Ukrainian Bukovel system.

“These complexes are relatively inexpensive, about 400,000 hryvnias. Our task is to create interference so that the enemy operator cannot intercept frequencies and signals. The more EW systems we deploy, the more signals we can intercept,” the commander explained.

He also emphasized that the effectiveness of EW operations depends on coordination between units, as it is necessary to assign which unit jams which frequency, considering that both enemy and Ukrainian drones operate simultaneously in the air.

According to the officer, EW units need personnel trained to operate electronic warfare systems on the front lines, as well as developers.

“Everyone is waiting for revolutionary solutions that could help in the battle of technology and drones,” he added.

As Ukrinform previously reported, the military has accelerated the supply of EW systems.