Russia has been increasingly successful in foiling attacks by Western GPS-guided munitions, rendering many weapons supplied to Ukraine futile.
Many US-made satellite-guided munitions in Ukraine have failed to withstand Russian jamming technology, prompting Kyiv to stop using certain types of weapons. Meanwhile, Russia’s ability to combat high-tech munitions has far-reaching implications for Ukraine and its Western backers, the Washington Post reported.
Some missiles fired from the HIMARS missile system have also been increasingly violated. In the first year, the gun was very successful in destroying ammunition depots and command posts far behind the front lines. Now Ukraine’s ability to defend its territory has been severely diminished, and has left officials in Kyiv urgently seeking help from the Pentagon for updates from weapons manufacturers.
Russian GPS jammers are increasingly disrupting the signal from the missile so that it no longer flies precisely to the target, sometimes it is a few metres away. A Ukrainian officer cites the performance of HIMARS: “When it’s, for example, a pontoon bridge … but there’s a 10-metre deviation, it ends up in the water.”
In addition to HIMARS, the success rate for Excalibur projectiles developed in the US, for example, has plummeted to less than 10 per cent in a matter of months. Six months ago, after the Ukrainians reported the problem, Washington simply stopped providing Excalibur projectiles because of the high failure rate, Ukrainian officials said.
GPS jammers send signals from the ground into the air, in a conical area. Any guided munitions or aircraft crossing the area are at risk of failure.
According to a security expert who spoke to the newspaper, the Russian army has made major strides in electronic warfare in the past year. Many Western weapons that were very effective when introduced are now much less so.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, for his part, says the failures were accounted for from the beginning and that the military is constantly working with Ukraine to respond. “The problem with a lot of Western defence companies,” he said, compared with Russian manufacturers, is that “there is not the same sense of urgency.”
Over the period of the conflict in Ukraine, Russian defence companies, for their part, have increased production of ammunition 14 times, drones 4 times and armoured weapons 3.5 times, Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the leadership of defence industry companies.
