Four years of electronic warfare have not given Russia lasting control of the electromagnetic spectrum. Every technological advantage is now met by a countermeasure.
As jamming has become more effective against the radio links used by FPV drones, one response has gained ground: remove the radio link altogether. Connected to its operator by several kilometers of fiber-optic cable, a drone can keep flying in conditions that would sever the link to a conventional FPV.
Russian forces were among the first to deploy the technology at scale. Ukraine has since accelerated its own adoption of fiber-optic drones while developing new defenses against them.
An army already prepared for electronic warfare
Russia did not enter the war in Ukraine unprepared for electronic warfare. Following reforms launched after 2008, its armed forces built specialized EW units and fielded electronic intelligence and jamming systems such as Borisoglebsk-2, Leer-3 and Palantin. The mission was clear: detect an emission, characterize it, locate its source and disrupt it.
But How Russia Fights, a 2025 report published by U.S. Army Europe and Africa and based largely on observations collected between 2022 and mid-2024, points to a deeper problem.
Gains made through electronic warfare rarely last. A capability that works today can quickly lose much of its value once the enemy learns how to bypass or counter it.
When EW reaches the front line
The spread of drones has pushed electronic warfare down to the tactical edge. Detectors, portable jammers, counter-UAS systems and electronic protection suites are increasingly deployed directly with frontline units and mounted on vehicles.
Part of that shift is driven by necessity. Russia’s larger EW systems are valuable, detectable and increasingly vulnerable to attack. Many have been destroyed or captured, helping drive a move toward smaller, more distributed architectures.
That trend was already visible in early 2024, as Russian forces increasingly fitted vehicles with Volnorez counter-drone systems. Ukrainian operators, meanwhile, adjusted their attack profiles to work around those defenses.
For both sides, EW is no longer simply a specialist function. It has become a permanent feature of tactical combat: detect enemy emissions, protect friendly systems and jam hostile links without disrupting your own drones and communications. The denser the battlefield becomes with radios, drones, sensors and jammers, the harder that deconfliction gets.
The jammer paradox
Jam an enemy frequency and you may also disrupt a friendly one. Vehicle-mounted countermeasures must be coordinated with onboard communications and with systems used by nearby units. When that coordination breaks down, friendly interference can compromise the operation itself.
The cycle quickly repeats. Jam one frequency and the enemy shifts to another. Widen the jammer’s coverage and drones begin hopping between frequencies. Jammers and signal-analysis systems then evolve in response. At some point, adding more jammers or more power stops being enough.
When the drone escapes the jammer
Fiber-optic FPV drones are perhaps the clearest example.
A spool of fiber connects the drone directly to its operator. RF jammers that can sever the control link of a conventional FPV therefore have little effect on its command channel.
Russia’s growing use of fiber-guided drones has increased the threat to Ukrainian movement and logistics behind the line of contact. In Kursk and later in the Donbas, they have made some supply routes harder to use.
In July 2026, in the Sumy region, Russian fiber-optic FPVs struck electrical substations as far as 26 kilometers from the front. Some of those facilities were already protected by electronic countermeasures and physical defenses, including anti-drone nets. Russian operators then adapted their attack routes to reach the protected equipment.
That does not make fiber-optic FPVs a decisive Russian breakthrough. They solve one problem while creating others. The spool adds weight, can snag on obstacles and requires different piloting techniques. More importantly, Ukraine is now using the same technology while developing new defenses against it.
Their spread also says something about Ukrainian jamming. Radio links had become vulnerable enough for Russian operators to abandon RF control altogether.
Protect the signal : then learn to do without it
The Geran drone tells a similar story. As Ukraine strengthens GNSS jamming and spoofing, Russian designs continue to change. Successive generations of Kometa antennas and alternative architectures have appeared over time. Russia has repeatedly adapted its Geran configurations. The problem is that Ukrainian countermeasures keep forcing another change.
According to a Ukrainian estimate, electronic warfare was still capable of neutralizing a significant share of Geran drones during some nighttime attacks in early 2026.
The next step is to reduce dependence on external signals altogether, using inertial navigation, onboard processing, visual navigation and greater autonomy.
The best answer to jamming may not be an unjammable signal, but a system that needs the signal less.
Stop jamming the drone. Find the operator.
If the drone becomes harder to defeat electronically, its operator may still be detectable.
Russian forces hunt Ukrainian EW positions, radars, command posts, artillery systems and UAV teams so they can be engaged by other effectors. EW is therefore no longer used only to protect friendly forces or disrupt enemy systems. It is also feeding the targeting chain.
Pressure on UAV teams can force operators farther from the front, reducing the effective reach of their drones and making persistent surveillance harder to sustain.
But the same logic applies in reverse. A jammer that transmits can be geolocated. An antenna creates a signature. A command post concentrating operators and communications becomes a target.
No lasting advantage
After four and a half years of war, the result is paradoxical.
Russia entered Ukraine with electronic warfare widely regarded as one of its major military advantages. It has achieved significant effects against drones, communications and some precision-guided weapons. But it has failed to turn that advantage into lasting control of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Russia has adapted repeatedly since 2022. So has Ukraine. Each new Russian solution has forced a response, and many of those responses have in turn reduced the value of what came before. Russia has learned to fight more effectively in a contested electromagnetic environment. It has not learned to control it.
For Western militaries, that distinction matters. The lesson may be less about mastering the spectrum than about remaining effective when nobody can.
