Russia’s FPV Drones Foiled by Its Own Signal Jammers

Russian first-person-view (FPV) drones are being “suppressed by our own electronic warfare,” according to a Russian military blogger.

Svyatoslav Golikov, one of Russia’s prominent commentators on the war in Ukraine, said on Tuesday that a Russian source close to the captured eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka reported “a total lack of interaction between [Russian] FPV groups and electronic warfare units.”

Approximately 30 percent of Russian FPV drones reach the intended target areas, the blogger said in a post to messaging app Telegram. “The rest fall immediately after Lastochkyne or even during take-off” and are “suppressed by our electronic warfare.”

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

FPV drones and electronic warfare (EW) are part of both Moscow and Kyiv’s efforts to restrain one another at several points along the frontline, including around Avdiivka. Russian forces have pressed westward since its forces captured Avdiivka, a city that had weathered a decade on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine and was considered a Ukrainian stronghold, in mid-February. Ukraine has since withdrawn from a handful of villages west of the city, including Lastochkyne.

EW systems can interfere with the targeting of drones, jamming the signals from satellites directing the uncrewed vehicles to their destination. The full-scale war in Ukraine, now in its third year, has pushed forward drone—and counter-drone—technology as both sides battle to wield uncrewed vehicles most effectively.

Earlier this week, another prominent Russian military blogger said Moscow was contending with “huge problems” on the frontline as Ukrainian drone operators worked around Russian EW equipment.

Kyiv’s troops are “already changing frequencies and ordering industrial production with this changed parameter from foreign factories,” the blogger wrote on Sunday. “Our electronic warfare is not always effective against them.”

Ukrainian sources have also reported that Russia’s military has moved its own FPV drones to frequencies different to those often used by Ukraine’s electronic warfare (EW) systems, in particular the portable versions, Samuel Bendett of the U.S.-based think tank the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), told Newsweek on Monday.

Both sides appear to believe the other is producing more FPV drones, but it is very difficult to discern true numbers, he added.

Ukraine is able produce 150,000 drones every month, and may manufacture 2 million uncrewed vehicles by the end of 2024, a Ukrainian official said on Monday.

Bendett told Newsweek in mid-December that Russian volunteer, state and affiliated manufacturing efforts had upped their production of FPVs for Moscow’s war effort.