Russia Builds Electronic Warfare Dome to Defeat Drones in Syria

The Russian Ministry of Defense said the military has created a multilayered electronic warfare (EW) network to destroy drones in Syria.

"The EW troops continue to successfully carry out special tasks in the Syrian Arab Republic in order to counter the technical means of reconnaissance of illegal armed formations, making a huge contribution to the victory over international terrorists. The enemy now uses less sophisticated systems to attack the Khmeimim airbase,” the MoD quoted Vadim Revin, commander of the Russian task force in Syria’s EW unit, as saying.

The military demonstrated to the media some intercepted drones, including two serial quadcopters and an improvised unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) carrying a warhead. The control and radio navigation channels of the UAVs had been suppressed, resulting in the forced landing of the vehicles.

Denis Kulikov, commander of the EW unit at Tartus base, said a dome-shaped EW counter-UAV network has been established in Syria.

“The Pole-21 jamming station and the Ratnik-Kupol system, which is designed to suppress UAV control channels, are used. The airspace here is also covered with the latest Russian EW systems capable of blinding the pilots of enemy aircraft. Targets are detected by the Krasukha S-4 system, while the shipborne TK-25 suppresses their onboard radars," said Kulikov.

TK-25E shipborne electronic countermeasures system is designed to suppress airborne and shipborne target acquisition radars, weapon control radars and anti-ship missile radar seekers, with time of response reaching 3 seconds. The signals are classified in automatic model.