Plans are afoot to roll counter-uninhabited aerial vehicle defences across the entirety of the frontline in Ukraine.
The intensity of Russian Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (UAV) kamikaze attacks against targets in Ukraine was laid bare in a report from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in February. CSIS is a defence and security thinktank based in Washington DC. Calculating the Cost Effectiveness of Russia’s Drone Strikes said Russia had launched over 19,000 missiles against targets in Ukraine between 28th September 2022 and 28th December 2024. The report continued that, of these 19,000 projectiles, over 14,700 were kamikaze UAVs. Most of these weapons were Shahed-136 kamikaze UAVs supplied by the Islamic Republic of Iran and designated the Geran-2 by the Russian military. Figures released by the United Nations in February stated that in January alone, 139 civilians were killed by such weapons, with 738 injured. In Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, kamikaze UAV attacks accounted for 70 percent of casualties that month.
To be fair, Ukrainian air defenders enjoy success in detecting, intercepting and destroyed a good number of Russian UAVs. Figures produced by the Institute for Science and International Security, another Washington DC-based think tank, say that between 75 percent and almost 100 percent of the Shahed-136s were successfully intercepted by air Ukrainian defenders between April 2023 and June 2024.
Nonetheless, efforts are continuing in Ukraine to devise mechanisms to detect and intercept drones. Such aircraft can be tricky targets. They tend to be physically small, meaning they have a small Radar Cross Section (RCS), making them difficult to detect by some ground-based air surveillance radars. Figures seen by Armada have stated that the Shahed-136 may have an RCS as small as 0.01 square metres. Ornithologically speaking, this RCS is smaller than a European blackbird and comparable to a warbler. The risk is that the radar may dismiss targets with small RCSs as birds, and hence clutter, and ignore them. That said, radars are now incorporating software to recognises the flight dynamics of UAVs compared to birds. For example, the radar characteristics of an aircraft’s propellers, compared to a bird’s flapping wings, helps target discrimination.
Holding the line
Ongoing efforts in Ukraine to improve UAV defences have resulted in Kvertus’ Atlas Counter-UAV (CUAV) system. The company has a reported goal of rolling out a CUAV architecture which could eventually furnish the entire the frontline between Ukraine and areas occupied by Russia in the south and southwest. This is a distance of circa 1,200 kilometres (746 miles) according to reports by Ukrainska Pravda. Atlas combines several technologies: Kvertus’ Azimuth UAV Electronic Support Measure (ESM) detection and tracking system, and the company’s Mirage jammer. These sensors and effectors can be distributed across the frontline to create an integrated network of CUAV systems. These apparatuses are controlled by a single operator, their console and server.
Kvertus told Armada that the Azimuth sensor can detect UAVs at a range of 16.2 nautical miles/nm (30 kilometres/km) when the sensor is on the ground and 27nm (50km) when mounted on an airborne platform. Azimuth will detect radio links carrying a UAV’s video feed and the control channel linking the pilot to the aircraft and vice versa. These links typically inhabit frequencies of between 900 megahertz/MHz up to 5.8 gigahertz/GHz. Once a threat is detected, the operator activates the Mirage jammer to attack these channels. Kvertus added that Atlas can allow the detection and jamming cycle to occur automatically sans human intervention.
Architecture
The Atlas architecture typically has one control station, one Azimuth ESM and four Mirage jammers, although this can be scaled up according to the user’s wishes. As well as deploying Atlas ensembles across the frontline, Kvertus said that federated systems could eventually protect the whole country. Although some Atlas components are sourced from the People’s Republic of China, the software is indigenously developed. The immediate intention is for Atlas systems to be deployed across the entirety of the Ukrainian frontline. This process could take several months.
by Dr. Thomas Withington
