A Russian soldier with a Silok jammer. Via social media
Russian force in Ukraine deploy Silok radio-jammers in order to disrupt the radio links between Ukrainian drone and their operators.
But the Ukrainians have knocked out several Siloks. With drones. Most recently, a Mavic quadcopter from Ukraine’s Aerobomber unit bombed, with grenades, a tripod-mounted Silok—apparently destroying it.
Add the drone raids on Silok counter-drone systems to the long, and lengthening, list of ironic operations by Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian artillery blasting a Russian counter-artillery radar. A Ukrainian GPS-guided bomb blowing up a Russian GPS-jammer. And many, many examples of Ukrainian drones bombing Russian drone-jammers.
Russia widened their war on Ukraine in February 2022 with what, on paper, was the world’s most fearsome electronic-warfare force: overlapping radio-and radar-detectors, automated jamming-control systems and hundreds of jammers, big and small.
It should be evident, by now, that Russia E.W. doesn’t always work very well in the stress of actual combat. “As it turns out, such equipment is effective only at Russian training grounds,” the Ukrainian military stated after the army’s 128th Mountain Assault Brigade captured a Silok set in September 2022.
The Silok automatically detects and jams drones’ radio links out to range of up to 2.5 miles. For static defense, it rests on a tripod. It also can travel on a truck. The first Silok reached front-line forces in 2018 and participated in a war game in Orenburg Oblast in western Russian the same year.
According to the Kremlin, the Silok in the Orenburg exercise helped to repel a swarm of 10 drones conducting a mock assault on a command post. But the Silok’s performance in Ukraine has been ... less than stellar. Ukrainian forces previously struck Siloks in June and October 2022
It’s unclear exactly why the Siloks can’t always jam the drones that hunt them. It’s possible Ukrainian drone operators frustrate Russian jamming by frequently changing radio frequencies.
It also is possible the Silok simply lacks the sensitivity to detect a drone and the power to jam it. It’s possible, in other words, that it’s just not very good. And it certainly doesn’t help that Ukrainian intelligence has had access to an intact Silok ever since the 128th Brigade captured a copy back in late 2022.