This is part 2 of a two-part series on Ukraine’s efforts to remake its aerial defenses during its war with Russia. For part 1, click here.
As a defensive contrivance, walls are about as old as warfare itself. Think of Hadrian’s Wall, China’s Great Wall, and the castles and battlements of the Middle Ages, for starters. But can a wall be effective against modern first-person-view drones, which have killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands, in the war in Ukraine? It turns out it probably can—if it’s a “wall” consisting of thousands of jammers.
That’s the idea behind the vision of the Kyiv-based electronic warfare firm Kvertus, announced in February, of a 1,500-kilometer-long “wall” of detectors and jammers to detect and counter incoming first-person-view (FPV) drones.
Kvertus, founded in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, has emerged as a major innovative force in electronic warfare, an area in which Ukraine lagged significantly behind Russia at the war’s onset. The only consistently reliable countermeasure against typical FPV drones is electronic warfare, including jamming. Once a jammer severs the link between a drone and its operator, the drones either crash or hover until they run out of energy.
Kvertus commercial director Serhii Skoryk is a former military officer who divides his time between the battlefields of eastern Ukraine and Kvertus’s R&D labs in Kyiv. He speaks bluntly and pragmatically about the danger of FPV drones, which he has seen kill many of his friends. He believes the complexity and inefficiency of existing jamming and detection systems is responsible for many failures, and therefore fatalities of soldiers and also civilians.
“The problem with existing systems is that they are very heavy and very power-hungry,” Skoryk said. “They are also quite difficult to operate, especially if you are in a situation like ours when we had to replace many of our trained soldiers with new recruits from general mobilization.”
Contrary to their name, FPV drones can fly well beyond the actual line of sight of an operator, Skoryk notes. With an additional antenna, these drones can reach distances as far as 50 km away from the controller, providing attackers of all sorts with a weapon that conceals their whereabouts.
“I can kill large quantities of people in any place, and you will not be able to find me,” says Skoryk. “I could be sitting 50 kilometers away and all you would see is an antenna in my window.”
A great wall of jammers
Kvertus’s antidrone wall, dubbed Atlas, will consist of 8,500 jamming and detection units that will work seamlessly in a single system, providing all brigades, battalions, and platoons along the front line with a one-screen overview of approaching threats. The system will be based on Kvertus’s MS Azimuth detection units, which spot incoming UAVs at distances of up to 30 km by detecting control, telemetry, and other signals emitted by the drones.
The detection network will be complemented by the company’s range of Mirage intelligent jamming units. These were designed after an extensive review of operational experience in Ukraine with a variety of Western jamming systems.
The Mirages jam a vast range of frequencies from 0 to 6,000 megahertz while consuming 250 watts of power when operational and only 50 watts on stand-by. That gives them up to 20 hours of battery life compared with the mere hours available with most existing systems, according to Skoryk. Most important, the system doesn’t require an operator to manually turn the jamming on, saving precious time and eliminating risk.
A factory on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, burns after being hit by multiple Shaheed drones during a Russian strike on 24 April 2025.Cedar Barnes/ZUMA/Alamy
“The idea is to be able to control the jamming and detection network from a safe place,” Skoryk says. “We don’t want people to have to go out there having to press buttons. Too many people have died like that. Even the smallest drones can fly at 80 miles per hour, so every minute counts.” Crucially, the Atlas system will enable the Ukrainian forces to selectively jam the enemy’s drones while maintaining the ability to fly their own.
Kvertus, supported by the Brave1 defense cluster and the Ukrainian armed forces, is raising US $130 million in funding to get the Atlas network up and running by the end of this year.
Atlas may not do much to stop the more autonomous Shahed drones targeting cities like Kyiv, Skoryk admits. But for inhabitants of the heavily shelled towns closer to the battlefields, it could be a game changer. “In cities like Kharkiv, Russian FPV drones kill people every day,” says Skoryk.
Coming soon: an aircraft carrier for drones?
Despite their relatively low success rates, the Shaheds are a continuing challenge for Ukraine’s defenders. After information began leaking about the tricks of the Pokrova spoofing system, Russia reportedly responded by upgrading the Shahed guidance technology. By increasing the number of antenna elements, they attempted to make the drones more resilient to electronic interference. So far, Atalan believes, these efforts have not worked.
The growing numbers of Shaheds dispatched by Russia daily also raises concerns. New defensive concepts are being considered including autonomous interceptor drones launched from helium-filled aerostats, like mini aircraft carriers in the sky. The Ukrainian defense-tech machine cannot afford to slow down.
“Russians are stronger than we are,” says Skoryk. “They have more people. We need to be clever and we need to be faster. That’s the only way.”
In the meantime, life goes on in Kyiv. Restaurants are open, and Ukrainian classics and Western staples are on the menus. The Ferris wheel on Kontraktova Square keeps going ‘round and ‘round amid the daily blaring of air raid sirens and the whirls of business and socializing. The ice and snow have melted, and Kyivans are wearily bracing themselves for another summer at war. Most will keep counting on luck to get them through the occasional ballistic missile barrages. And for most of them, that luck will hold.
