The Russian armed forces destroy about 10,000 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) every month, or more than 300 drones per day, as part of Moscow’s special military operation, the UK's Royal United Services Institute (RASI) revealed in a new report.
The think tank’s report, which was seen by a New York-based news outlet, called electronic warfare a "critical component" of Russia's tactics, which the RASI said adds to “the staggering losses” of Ukrainian UAVs.
According to the survey, Russia maintains “a major electronic-warfare system roughly every 6 miles (9.6 km)” along the conflict's approximately 750 mile (1,207 km) front line.
“Sophisticated Russian systems such as the Shipovnik-Aero jamming station are hard to detect and can imitate other signals,” the RASI pointed out.
The station, the report added, also has an advanced array of effects for downing the Ukrainian drones, including interfering with their navigational systems.
The survey comes after a UK magazine quoted an unnamed Ukrainian defense industry source as saying that Russia “performs black magic” when it comes to its anti-drone defense systems.
“They can jam frequencies, spoof GPS, [and] send a drone to the wrong altitude so that it simply drops out of the sky," the source added.