{"id":20796,"date":"2018-06-04T19:42:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T19:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2018\/06\/04\/whats-the-frequency-putin-5-questions-about-russias-ew-capability\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:10:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:10:24","slug":"whats-the-frequency-putin-5-questions-about-russias-ew-capability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/electronic-warfare\/2018\/06\/04\/whats-the-frequency-putin-5-questions-about-russias-ew-capability\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the frequency, Putin? 5 questions about Russia\u2019s EW capability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Electronic warfare is the art of the invisible. Or at least, the invisible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the signals sent through it and detected by machines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the reliance of modern war fighting by the United States and its NATO allies on successful mastery of the electromagnetic spectrum, it\u2019s worth taking a close look at exactly what they might encounter in a near-peer adversary. To get that closer look, we asked Samuel Bendett, a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, to give us the run-down on Russia\u2019s electronic warfare capabilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What unique threat does Russian electronic warfare pose to U.S. and NATO forces in Europe?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russian EW is a developed, mature technology that has continued to develop after the collapse of the Soviet Union. While U.S. technology may have been superior to the Soviet analogue, Americans basically shelved their EW capacity after the end of the Cold War due to the absence of threat that Moscow used to represent prior to 1991. So over the past several years, Americans were suddenly confronted with their atrophied capability when compared to Russian EW tech and concept of operations. Objectively speaking, the United States can catch up to the current Russian capacity \u2015 but it would take time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Has that threat changed in the last five years?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past five years, Russians have been testing and evaluating a variety of EW technologies \u2015 those that operate at close range to those that can potentially function at hundreds of kilometers. Russians have also been practicing their operations and techniques, tactics and procedures under possible Western EW attack so that their troops and technologies can learn to function in the absence of technology that has grown ubiquitous on the battlefield, like GPS<\/a> and GLONASS, the Russian version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have we seen any new EW platforms deployed in Russia\u2019s proxy wars, like Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ukraine, there have been reports of Leer-3 EW platform \u2015 a UAV-carried cell tower-suppressor delivered via a team of two to three Orlan UAVs. In Syria especially<\/a> \u2015 where Russian military has tested close to 200 different military technologies \u2015 the Krasuha and Moskva EW systems were sited, along with the aforementioned Leer-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\t