Military analyst and communication expert Serhiy 'Flash' Beskrestnov shared his thoughts on the situation in Ukraine with regard to electronic warfare (EW), specifically the number needed and how much is already available. He spoke about it in an interview for ALPHA MEDIA on YouTube.
"The needs for EW across the country are currently met by about a third," the expert stated in an interview.
However, he emphasized that the coverage of such needs in Ukraine has always been around this level.
"The threat from the enemy is growing, the scale is increasing, so the needs in EW are also growing," Serhiy "Flash" added.
He also highlighted that EW is a broad term covering various areas, starting from individual trench EW systems on soldiers' vehicles to EW systems deployed across Ukraine to protect against Shaheds and UAVs, as well as jamming satellite navigation signals.
"All these systems are very different," the expert noted.
Speaking about the influence of state institutions, 'Flash' believes that there is a positive trend in resolving these issues.
"The state is providing support, partially funding enterprises that produce coded EW products. They can be supplied to the front. Of course, there are orders from the Ministry of Defense, particularly for systems that counteract UAVs like 'Bukovel,'" the specialist said.
All EW needs in Ukraine are currently being met with domestic resources, and partners have almost not assisted in this matter.
The expert sees several reasons for this, including:
- Partners were not prepared for the war to turn into a drone war, which created the need for countermeasures;
- Like Russia, partners' EW was based on large hardware systems, and they were unable to switch to addressing large-scale needs for small gadgets;
- The entire EW system of partners was designed to suppress commercial drones produced in serial production. In other words, they "were not mentally prepared for the fact that here everything is flying on any frequency."
"The most difficult thing for Western EW producers is that these (various UAVs flying on different frequencies) appear every month and every week," emphasized the expert, also mentioning that this requires producers to be triply responsive in the context of war and make prompt changes to devices, which requires additional funds.
