Ukraine’s Delta situational awareness, and command and control tool could provide NATO and allied nations with a useful template for future intelligence management systems supporting multi domain operations.
Ukraine’s Delta Situational Awareness (SA) and Command and Control (C2) system has become a celebrated capability that has proven indispensable in the country’s ongoing fight against Russian occupation. The Delta software acts as a clearing house for large quantities of gathered from an array of sources. These sources can include the military, government departments and even civilians.
Delta was developed by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence’s Centre for Innovation and Development of Defence Technologies; Aerorozvidka, a Ukrainian non-governmental organisation and the Ukrainian Ministry of Digital Transformation. Testing of the system commenced in 2017, according to reports, and it became operational in a limited configuration in August 2022. Full deployment of Delta was authorised by the Ukrainian government in early February 2022, just days before Russia’s second invasion on 24th of that month. Open sources state Delta played a key role in helping Ukrainian forces repulse Russian attempts to capture the Ukrainian capital.
Concept of operation
Delta is a cloud-based software system accessible via laptops, desktop computers, smartphones and tablets. The software collates and allocates data and intelligence from a myriad of sources to specific targets. These sources can include Ukrainian and allied military assets including ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) capabilities like Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) satellites or Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and/or Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) means. Human Intelligence (HUMINT) can also be uploaded. This HUMINT could include data collected by intelligence operatives, or even imagery taken on a smartphone by the public. Let us suppose that a Ukrainian resident in a village has seen a small group of Russian vehicles nearby. The person takes a picture of those vehicles, uploads these to Delta along with details on where the vehicles are located.
This information is assessed and displayed on Delta’s ‘Google Maps’ style cartography along with the vehicles’ location. All additional information that is collected regarding those vehicles is progressively added to this Delta reference as and when it arrives. For example, IMINT footage of the vehicles collected by UAVs is added as is relevant SIGINT such as details of what communications systems the vehicles maybe using.
The Delta user now has the sum of all the information available regarding a potential target at their fingertips. The more information the user has, the better and more rapid the decision will be on how that target should be treated. For instance, is it most profitable to attack the vehicles kinetically? Would electronic attack against the vehicles’ communications be more appropriate? What effects should be used in line with wider tactical and/or operational objectives in that part of the theatre? The logic behind Delta is to break stovepipes that can exist between intelligence sources and to provide those fighting the war with as richer picture in as clearer way as possible: “Through realising Delta we have established vertical, horizontal and diagonal exchanges of target-specific data and intelligence” a Ukrainian source shared with Armada.
Evolution
The source shared details on Delta’s status and the system’s successes to date: “We estimate that $15 billion of Russian equipment may have been destroyed using the Delta system,” said the source. “Our aim was to provide total SA and we had around 100,000 Delta users by the end of its first year of operation.” A key benefit of Delta is that information can be uploaded via the internet using robust safety protocols. Information uploaded to Delta is subjected to stringent verification. Nonetheless, the involvement of the Ukrainian public in supporting Delta has been vital in helping the rapid identification of targets and enriching the intelligence picture. “When we started using Delta, we initially processed incoming information from UAVs and satellites. Initially, the system just focused on targets in and around Kyiv, but we have now expanded Delta to include targets across the whole country.” Recent enhancements include the ability to control UAVs via Delta. Furthermore, the system is compatible with the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16 Viper/Fighting Falcon series combat aircraft supplied to the Ukrainian Air Force.
At the heart of Delta is the need to perform data sharing “faster than the enemy,” said the source. It is vital to “enable, rather than govern” the sharing of intelligence “to go across forces, remove red tape and old-fashioned thinking.” This methodology has been possible through the drafting of relevant interoperability standards and protocols for data drawn from a vast and diverse set of sources. The source added that a relevant mantra is not to hide information from troops, not to overcomplicate and not to prevent the sharing of data through inertia.
Writ large, Delta represents a clear shake-up of the kill chain and reconnaissance strike concepts beloved of US and allied forces, and their Russian counterparts: “(W)e simply have too many effectors and too many targets” for these approaches to be relevant, said the source. Both the kill chain and reconnaissance strike concepts rely on military ISR assets like UAVs finding and fixing targets which are then engaged by other military assets. Employing the civilian population as a valuable reconnaissance asset complicates these approaches.
The source added that Delta is typically used to support warfighting from the strategic and operational levels, down to the battalion at the tactical level. Troops on the frontline might not always have the communications bandwidth available to access the rich intelligence picture offered by Delta via their radio links. This can be a notable problem if those links are experiencing significant Russian electronic attack. Delta traffic typically moves across wired and wireless internet protocol links.
Delta is an important innovation which NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and allied nations are learning from as they embrace the Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) mindset. The system provides a useful template for how ISR information from several sources can be rapidly collected, allocated and distributed.
by Dr. Thomas Withington
