The Economist: Ukraine’s Lima EW System Can Throw Russian Bombs With UMPK Kits Off-Course

The Ukrainian-made Lima EW system is capable of jamming the satellite navigation systems of Russian bombs with UMPK kits.

The Economist reported on this, citing former German Ministry of Defense official Nico Lange.

He explained that Ukrainian specialists have developed a system capable of disrupting the guidance of Russian bombs with UMPK kits, significantly reducing the accuracy of their strikes.

Lange believes that Ukraine has made a real breakthrough in the field of electronic warfare systems, and the equipment currently used on the frontlines outperforms both Russian and Western systems.

Lima is not a traditional electronic warfare station that simply generates radio noise to disrupt enemy systems. According to the manufacturer, the system uses digital jamming, a combination of jamming, spoofing, and cyber information attacks on the navigation receiver.

It should be noted that the Russian precision-guided UMPK kit uses a combined guidance system, which consists of an inertial system that inputs the target coordinates into the model and a satellite navigation system that controls the bomb during most of its flight.

If the connection is lost, the bomb continues its flight toward the target, relying on the inertial guidance system, which, depending on the bomb’s flight time, leads to increasingly larger deviations.

For example, when using GPS, the American precision-guided JDAM kit has a circular probable error of 1–5 meters.

Meanwhile, when the bomb loses connection and relies solely on the inertial system, the error is 13 meters after 38 seconds of flight or 30 meters after 100 seconds of flight.

In addition to Western politicians, Russian propagandists are also reporting the loss of Russia’s advantage on the battlefield in the form of the widespread use of UMPK kits.

They claim that Ukraine is using a significant number of electronic warfare systems located along the flight paths of the bombs. As a result, the bombs lose their ability for precise flight correction and begin to deviate from their intended course.

It should be noted that the duration of the bomb’s flight also plays a role, as it is crucial for significant deviations from the intended trajectory. While in the case of JDAM, the error after 100 seconds of flight is 30 meters, in the case of UMPK, it can reach 50–100 meters.