How to protect rear and frontline cities from "Shaheds" using EW: an expert explains

During attacks, up to 200 fake targets can appear for every hundred real "Shaheds," and EW can divert them from their route without physically destroying them.

Why private EW is needed and how it counters fake targets Contra-Drone co-founder Tymofiy Yurkiv compares EW to an invisible missile in an air-defense system that can affect targets without physically destroying them. This becomes especially important because of the large number of fake targets during Russian attacks — according to Yurkiv, for every hundred real "Shaheds" there can be 200 fake ones used to distract Ukrainian air defenses. He believes such targets do not necessarily need to be destroyed: if they have cheaper and less protected navigation systems, they can be diverted from their programmed route by EW. "You need to be able to identify them, but you don't necessarily have to shoot them down. You can simply divert them through effective EW work," Yurkiv explained. Even if a conventional air-defense system cannot shoot down all drones, EW can prevent them from hitting the programmed target precisely. According to Yurkiv, the error depends on weather conditions — in worse conditions it can be 200–300 meters, and in some cases 500–600 meters, while in favorable conditions the error decreases to approximately 20–40 meters. Read also: Armor falls back: interview with the brigade commander of the 107 Territorial Defense brigade about how drones changed the frontlines What distinguishes protection of frontline cities from protection of large cities Yurkiv emphasizes that the approach to defending frontline and large cities in central, southern, and western Ukraine should differ. For frontline cities he suggests using a large number of small complexes, personal detectors, and EW systems on each vehicle or other military equipment unit, and separately — long-range detection and suppression means so that drones lose the ability to complete missions while still on the enemy side. "These should be small complexes, but there should be many of them," he said. This approach, Yurkiv says, also has an economic rationale: if the enemy destroys one or two inexpensive complexes with an expensive missile or guided bomb, the economics of such a strike remain unfavorable for them. The interlocutor also suggests using a larger number of shorter-range radars — this makes it harder for the enemy to choose weapons to destroy them, since using an expensive ballistic missile or guided bomb against a cheap radar is economically unjustified. "We need the economics of war to remain in our favor. Even if the enemy uses multimillion-dollar missiles against an EW system that costs tens of thousands, or against a radar that costs a hundred, two, or three [thousand], the economics remain in our favor," Yurkiv says. For large cities, Yurkiv says, a different approach is possible — complexes there can be better protected from reconnaissance, concealed, and use somewhat more powerful systems. At the same time, he believes there is no need to give every Kyiv resident a personal video-signal detector or to install a vehicle EW on every car, since not all types of drones can reach central or western Ukrainian cities.

The question of effective protection against massed attacks is increasingly discussed by Ukrainian EW and interception manufacturers. Earlier RBC-Ukraine wrote about how interceptor drones hunt high-speed "Shaheds" and why physically shooting such targets down is becoming an increasingly difficult task. The outlet also explained whether it is possible to effectively shoot down "Banderol" kamikaze drones, which, like the "Shaheds," remain vulnerable to navigation jamming.