Armada’s Curran Papers articles are written by electromagnetic spectrum specialists and practitioners. The series is named after Dr. Joan Curran, a Welsh physicist known for her pioneering work developing the chaff anti-radar countermeasure during the Second World War. We hope the series honours her memory by showcasing innovative perspectives relevant to Electronic Warfare (EW) and Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO).
Video jamming features among the most curious Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) that have emerged on the frontlines in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Over the past 18 months, video jamming has become central to the ongoing battle in the electromagnetic spectrum. As Benjamin Remler and Julien Segre explain in their paper– video jamming has perhaps become the most effective tactic against enemy First-Person View (FPV) Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other Small UAVs (SUAVs). Video jamming is so important, in fact, that Russian and Ukrainian military bloggers regularly compile and publicly share statistics on the video frequencies detected from enemy FPVs by Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) forces.
Shifts in video frequency usage feed into a centralised competition of constant tactical and technical innovation. Incremental changes suffice to undercut enemy forces and impose major countermeasures in return. In summer 2025, Ukraine’s uninhabited aerial forces’ first deployment of a video module transmitting on the unorthodox 7.2 gigahertz/GHz band created a major storm on Telegram’s Russian military channels.[1]
What are the roots of this dynamic of incessant mutual feedback? Video jamming first appeared in summer 2024, as a Russian response to the growing number and sophistication of Ukrainian UAVs and their Radio Frequency (RF) control systems. Its success illustrates that video transmission remains the weak point of very low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf FPV UAVs and SUAVs, and its rise provides great insight into the mechanisms of tactical innovation during the conflict.
Jamming enemy UAVs, 2022-2024
Between 2022 and 2024, Russian and later Ukrainian Electronic Warfare (EW) teams and individual personnel were often successful in jettisoning adversarial uninhabited aircraft.[2] The main vector of attack was the control link, the wireless data transmission through which an operator commands and controls FPV UAVs. FPV UAV control links used radio communication systems developed by hobbyist communities, such as Express LRS (ELRS). These systems rely on Semtech’s proprietary LORA (Long Range) transceiver hardware and its chirp spread spectrum modulation. LORA is inexpensive, highly configurable, and well-suited to military applications due to its tolerance for interference, long range, modest power needs and low probability of detection.[3] Systems like ELRS, however, were entirely civilian, without purpose-built features to mitigate military jamming and other EW capabilities.
The civilian ELRS hardware ecosystem matured to the extent that it offered receiver modules equipped with multiple discrete RF processing chains at minimal additional cost. These multi-antenna ‘diversity’ modules, capable of simultaneous operation across distinct frequency ranges (for example 900 megahertz/MHz and 2.4 MHz), also supported the development of a dedicated, Ukrainian military fork of ELRS, known as MILELRS. Designed by Ukrainian engineers as custom radio receiver firmware in the first half of 2024, MILELRS offered substantial gains while remaining compatible with preexisting civilian hardware.[4] By summer 2024, MILELRS was already seeing considerable use. It is now among the most common militarised control link systems in Ukraine. It is also popular with the Russians, who gained access to and adopted an earlier iteration of the firmware by 2025.
Paired with MILBETA, Ukraine’s military adaptation of the civilian Betaflight flight controller system, MILELRS provides FPV UAV operators with a robust toolkit against the effects of control link jamming. MILELRS enables the live display of interference and jamming data on the operator’s screen, manual configuration of, and changes to, control link frequency ranges, redundant simultaneous communications channels, automatic channel switching upon interference detection, and the connection of multiple discrete receiver modules and units to a single flight controller. Put simply, MILELRS provides UAV operators with the ability to respond proactively to enemy EW. Accounts from the frontline confirm that MILELRS has made effective control link jamming very difficult. Since 2024, other open-source and proprietary Russian and Ukrainian control protocols and systems have emerged, matching and adding to MILELRS’ innovative suite of capabilities.
The proliferation of Ukrainian military UAV control systems in 2024 and the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s 1 million UAV plan stopped Russian jammers from reliably suppressing control link signals in the last kilometre (0.6 miles) and threatened to make Russian EW ineffective, at a time when personnel-hunting kinetic UAVs were multiplying in number.[5] Faced with declining results, Russian EW delved into a novel direction: large-scale video jamming.
Analog video signals and UAVs
Wireless FPV UAVs rely not on one, but on several RF signals. FPV UAVs receive a control signal and transmit both a telemetry and video signal in return. The onboard control module handles both the telemetry and control signals, while a separate Video Transmitter (VTX) transmits the video signal from the FPV UAV to the operator’s Video Receiver (VRX). The vast majority of FPVs and other low-cost UAVs use analogue cameras and transmit video signals using the analogue NTSC/PAL (National Television Standards Committee/Phase Alternating Line) standards, first established for colour television in the 1950s and 1960s.
The predominance of analogue transmission systems is an inheritance of the civilian FPV UAV markets, which created the demand for, and guided development of low-cost, high power analogue video transmitters and receivers operating in ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) bands. There were a couple reasons for this: The first is that analogue is the cheapest and most expedient option. Analogue video technology and hardware from different providers is mature, commoditised, and interoperable. By contrast, digital video solutions for FPV UAVs are more expensive, less reliable, and less interoperable.
Analogue retains two key performance advantages over digital video systems, graceful failure modes and lower latency. Within reasonable limits, analogue video image quality degrades gradually with electromagnetic interference, allowing operators to adjust. Digital video systems, on the other hand, rely on a bidirectional link to dynamically adjust image quality, until a threshold is reached and video cuts out entirely. Due to its simplicity, analogue video also has lower and more predictable latency than its digital counterparts. Given distances of five nautical miles/nm (9.3 kilometres/km) or more and higher levels of RF noise, let alone the adversarial conditions of the frontline, latency for cheap digital systems can climb up to 100 milliseconds or more. This is sub-optimal for responsive spatial manoeuvring and frontline use. Short of any movement towards cheap and reliable digital transmission systems, analogue transmission remains cheaper, more scalable, and more reliable; qualities that invite widespread use on the Ukrainian frontlines.
Video systems for consumer FPV UAV platforms typically operate in the lower-frequency ISM and amateur bands. Lower frequency signals attenuate least from environmental obstructions (for example vegetation, terrain and building materials) and atmospheric absorption, improving their range performance and reliability. Operation at such frequencies requires longer antennas, however. The result is that consumer FPV UAVs typically use one of three bands: the 1.2 GHz and 1.3GHz, 3.3GHz and 5.8GHz bands. The 1.2GHz and 3.3 GHz bands are dedicated amateur radio bands under International Telecommunication Union rules, while the 5.8 GHz band is a license-free ISM band commonly used by Wi-Fi signals. There are clear economic incentives for commercial manufacturers to bunch up video signals in the handful of spectrum segments open to free use.
The advent of video jamming
Video signals use more power and spectral bandwidth than control links. At around six megahertz, a standard NTSC/PAL analogue video signal requires two orders of magnitude more bandwidth than an FPV UAV control signal. They are easier to detect, intercept, and decode; any VRX within range, friend or foe, can pick up the video feed and plausibly infer the UAV’s location and direction. Furthermore, standard analogue video systems cannot support mid-flight changes in frequency. This presents a clear opportunity for adversarial ELINT and signals intelligence hardware and capabilities. Video from FPV UAVs always included an identification of its unit or squad, allowing the interceptor to recognise its affiliation. The practice of intercepting a UAV’s analogue video signal dates back to 2022 and 2023, when Russian and Ukrainian forces isolated the tactic as the easiest means to keep tabs on enemy FPVs.[6] At the same time, the short distances and flight times involved gave defending forces little time to act on this intelligence, limiting the adverse effects of using unencrypted analogue signals.
In 2024, however, Ukrainian control links became more EW-resistant. Russian forces were now forced to capitalise on the vulnerability of analogue signals. Disrupting video links takes significant effort. Defensive EW forces must always transmit towards the receiver for effective jamming. This is not an issue in the case of control signals: the receiver is onboard the FPV UAV, while the transmitter is located near the operator. As the FPV UAV approaches the source of interference, the control signal grows weaker and the interfering signal grows stronger. This dynamic is advantageous for the jamming party, as proximity simplifies the efficient direction of radiation towards the enemy receiver. Video signals, by contrast, are transmitted onboard the FPV UAV by a VTX towards the control station’s video receiver, located near the operator. The distance between the source of interference and its target remains constant and is far greater than that between EW assets and an attacking FPV UAV.
It is challenging to locate the operating station. This complicates effective alignment of the video jammer’s main lobe. There is also the problem of free-space path loss, which increases with the square of distance: all else being equal, the jamming signal’s power needs to be more powerful than the VTX signal by a factor equal to the squared ratio of their respective distances to the ground station VRX. For example, unobstructed distances of 1.6nm miles/nm (three kilometre) between the VRX and VTX and 3.2nm (six kilometres) between the VRX and jammer dictate that the jamming signal is four times more powerful than the VTX signal for parity. VTX units are capable of outputs of 2.5 Watts or five watts or more, call for video jammers to be bulky and power-hungry.
The good news for electronic warfare cadres is that several key considerations regarding FPV UAV video signal transmissions lie in their favour. For one, received signal power is not merely a question of raw power but also of antenna directivity or equivalent isotropically radiated power. Most analogue VTX use a low-gain, omnidirectional circular polarised antenna. Meanwhile, jammers exploit high gain directional antennas to increase effective power levels and withstand the effects of long distances. Operators can also equip VRXs with directional antennas pointed towards the FPV UAV for optimal video reception; this will not help them if the antenna also aligns with the jammer’s radiation pattern.
The structure and modulation of analogue video signals further impact jamming considerations. FPV UAV analogue video signals use wideband Frequency Modulation (FM) and require continuous throughput over several megahertz of bandwidth, hampering their endurance against broadband interference. Unlike control link systems, analogue video requires continuous throughput and cannot adjust to interference. The effects of channel interference for FM signals are nonlinear: if two FM signals occupy the same channel, the stronger signal will not combine additively and will instead dominate demodulated output. This is known as the capture effect. In the presence of noise, FM signal quality will degrade gradually until a signal-to-noise threshold is reached and the signal abruptly cuts out.
Certain sophisticated techniques are even more effective than noise jamming at provoking disruptive desynchronisation of the analogue video feed. Such techniques exploit the structure of the NTSC/PAL standard and frequency modulation to target the timing synchronisation pulses of video raster lines. For a baseband NTSC/PAL signal, whose images are rendered row by row, brief ‘H-sync’ pulses denote the beginning and end of each raster line for a frame. By producing a counterfeit H-sync pulse train at a deliberate time offset, and frequency modulating the signal for transmission on the proper frequency range, a jammer not only degrades signal quality but induce tearing, rolling or total loss of video decoding at the receiver. Interframe timing is analogueously handled by ‘V-sync’ pulses, whose disruption can also provoke loss of entire frames.[7] Both techniques require precise timing alignment, granting more room for error than white noise jamming.
Practicalities aside, EW platforms can readily combine these forms of jamming, with devastating results for SUAV operators. In fact, one tried and tested method to generate competing H-sync, V-sync, and image content to disrupt all aspects of an analogue signal is to simply broadcast a genuine analogue video signal in the same channel as the target. Given enough power and accurate direction all of these techniques work, underscoring the vulnerability of FPV video signals.
The rise of Russia’s Shtory
Russian EW teams scrambled for video jamming capabilities between spring and summer 2024. This was urgent: there were more Ukrainian FPV UAVs, and fewer of them were falling out of the sky due to control link jamming.[8] The Russians, in the meantime, had no real access to ready-made, effective solutions for video jamming.
As of 2022 and 2023, most mobile jammers could suppress narrowband ISM frequencies, namely the 868MHz to 915 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.8 GHz bands. Modular, portable jammers like Ukraine’s Kvertus AD G-6+ had a per-band RF output of ten watts to 20W.[9] This was good enough against control links and receivers onboard FPVs, not against ground station VRX a few kilometres further afield, especially without a direct line-of-sight. To jam operating stations located two nautical miles (3.7km) or more away, the Russians and Ukrainians needed powerful jammers and better positioning. While low-power, portable systems were unfit for purpose, Russia’s higher-power vehicular and trench jamming systems were also maladapted as they did not cover the correct frequency bands. The popular Groza YU-B and Groza-Avto EW systems, for instance, only had modules in the sub-GHz and 2.4 GHz bands; only fit to suppress control links.[10] There were no options purpose-built to jam video.
In the interim, improvised tactics would have to make do. One remedial tactic was to launch an FPV UAV with a high-power VTX, and simply transmit a competing video signal at the same frequency. Because analogue VTX/VRX pairs do not support frequency hopping, the presence of a competing analogue signal can degrade image quality or supplant the original video signal entirely. While theoretically capable of suppressing Ukrainian video signals, the process remained a situational, last-ditch tactic.[11]
In parallel, the Russian armed forces’ embattled EW technicians began the hard work of implementing crude custom jammer architectures. One approach was to integrate a standard VTX RF-chain with power amplifiers and directional (especially log-periodic) antennas. These antennas would be mounted as high as possible to boost signal propagation towards Ukrainians ground stations. Other solutions integrated VTX and 5.8GHz power amplifiers into pre-existing EW systems like the Groza jammers. In general, these ad hoc solutions were crude and inefficient. They created electromagnetic interference against friendly forces and proved difficult to maintain. At that stage, experimental do-it-yourself jammers were generally inoperable.[12]
Video jamming turned out to be a task for dedicated EW teams and purpose-built video jammers. The latter half of 2024 saw the rise of a new class of dedicated video jamming platforms, known by both sides as shtory. Shtora means curtain, an expression which is evocative of chaff and barrage jamming used during the Second World War, and signals the system’s function namely the denial of the operator’s ability to see through FPV UAV video feeds. From late 2024 Russian shtory have been emplaced on elevated supports (masts, trees, buildings, or other tall structures) anywhere from one kilometre (0.6 miles) to 15km (9.3 miles) inside the Russian rear area.[13] The jamming signals they mete out pose the biggest challenge against Ukraine’s UAV forces, and are now responsible for downing numerous FPV UAVs and analogue-transmitting uninhabited aerial vehicles. Given effective ELINT and rapid kill chains, shtory have become valuable defensive assets, guarding high-value materiel and indeed entire positions. For this reason, Serhii ‘Flash’ Beskrestnov has long flagged certain Russian shtory as top priority targets for Ukraine tactical UAVs pilots; a target suited for EW-proof, fibre optic-controlled FPV UAVs.[14]
Ukrainian pilots must contend with several variants of video jamming techniques and shtory. One category of shtora transmits high-power (50W or 100 Watts) noise and sync pulse jamming using dedicated jamming waveforms. The Chyornyi Glaz (Black Eye) is one example, first developed for frontline use and deployed by the Russians in 2024. Mr. Beskrestnov flagged the Chyorniy Glaz as a formidable challenge to Ukrainian operators. The other, cheaper category integrates a video transmitter and receiver to automatically jam frequencies under active Ukrainian use by broadcasting an adverse video signal. The Zerkal’tse (Mirror) EW system is a common example. When integrated with a VRX and VTX, a power amplifier, and circular-polarised or linear antennas, a Zerkal’tse can be obtained for over $390, an order of magnitude cheaper than Chyornyi Glaz and comparable stationary systems.[15] Contrasting the two offers useful insight into the diversity and wealth of procedures underlying video jamming operations.
Chyornyi Glaz consists of a set of directional antennas on a rotary base. An operator controls the antenna from 300 metres (984 feet) away through a set of cables, and supervises live video feeds across four monitors. The antenna and power set is usually found in a treeline or on a tall structure, but is too large to conceal and can provide a recognisable target for fibre-optic UAV operators. The Zerkal’tse, by contrast, is a hand-portable spectrum scanner and video signal generator, which only requires a power amplifier, VTX and VRX, and a couple of linear directional and circular polarised patch antennas. It is easily transportable and concealable within a nautical mile or two of the tactical edge. Zerkal’tse compares favourably to Chyornyi Glaz precisely in its mobility and low size, weight, and power. Its developers have even attempted commercialising a soldier-worn version.[16]
Early iterations of Chyorniy Glaz integrated three modules acting across the one gigahertz to 1.7 GHz and 4.9GHz to 6.1 GHz bands, but later versions now include a module for video channels around the 3.3GHz band. Each module is capable of 50W transmissions. According to confidential information, Chyorniy Glaz has a claimed theoretical range of 10.8nm (20km). If located close enough to the frontline, it often suppresses Ukrainian operations within a 1.1GHz to 2.2nm (two to four kilometre) radius. A single Zerkal’tse, on the other hand, can only cover one of the 1.2GHz, 3.3GHz and five gigahertz to six gigahertz bands at once. Its integrated, mobile ‘trench-jammer’ version transmits interfering video signals of ten watts or more, granting it at best a range of a few nautical miles.[17] In practice, this lower power-level may limit its effectiveness to soldiers in forward-positioned units. Chyorniy Glaz’s jamming signal likely combines white noise with deceptive sync pulses, while Zerkal’tse broadcasts pre-recorded signals consisting either of structured, deceptive noise or of another video feed. There is little difference on an RF level between the emission of structured interference and a competing video signal, the latter has nevertheless drawn criticism from Russian commentators as provocative attention-drawing.
Both Chyornyi Glaz and Zerkal’tse function semi-manually. During the ELINT phase, the operator can manually direct and automate the Chyornyi Glaz antenna rotation by 270 degrees. Using omnidirectional VRX antennas, Zerkal’tse automatically scans for enemy idea video signals, covering 80 frequency channels in five seconds. Once either system has identified, intercepted and started streaming a video signal, the operator needs to check the incoming video stream for the operating unit’s identification tag. Only after having confirmed its Ukrainian provenance can the operator initiate the jamming sequence, which can last for 15 minutes or 60 seconds for Chyorniy Glaz and Zerkal’tse, respectively.
The advantage, function, and unifying feature of these two systems is their automation and simplification of the detection-to-suppression chain, enabling the operator to act immediately on the interception of Ukrainian video signals. As products, they provide an integrated Command and Control (C2) system for suppression capabilities, while keeping a human in the loop. Their primary effect is to transform live ELINT into a determining and immediately actionable capability. This approach has great, if unrealized, potential for integration into large-scale EW systems of systems.
Towards a Shtora system of systems?
The capabilities and success of video jammers does not guarantee their proper or effective use. In fact, the Russians have failed to leverage these systems for multi-layered EW defensive architectures. If deployed in combination, these platforms could entice EW operators in different positions to collaborate within an ELINT-sharing network, essentially forming an effective system of systems to shield operational areas of dozens of square nautical miles against Ukrainian UAVs. Such architectures are the object of routine proposals by Russian military bloggers and technicians, with little result to boot. Instead, Russian EW units field shtory on an atomised basis, often as ad hoc protection for individual positions and materiel.
One attempt toward an integrated system-of-systems was recorded in 2024, when the 49th Army’s EW forces – stationed in occupied Kherson oblast, south of the Dnipro river, first formed a so-called KRAB (Complex Radio-Electronic Counter-UAV Warfare) group. The KRAB group’s federated Counter-UAV systems included a wide array of ELINT and jamming capabilities in order to counteract kinetic and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance UAVs over a wide area.[18] It included a HackRF Software-Defined Radio (SDR) with a 20-decibel signal amplifier and the open-source SDR++ spectrum analysis software. The Russian-made Sova (Owl) spectrum analyser also scanned for video signals in the 5.8GHz band, capturing Ukrainian analogue links from 13.5nm (25km) away. This ELINT enabled Silok-01 jammers, captured Ukrainian UAVs with directional antennas, and smaller, dispersed jammers such as the Zerkal’tse to suppress Ukrainian receivers on the other side of the Dnipro. These systems were geographically dispersed as appropriate but coordinated by a formalised C2 structure. The KRAB group purported to have achieved high rates of UAV suppression, though this claim remains wholly unverified: The system’s operation was cut short in spring 2025 by a successful Ukrainian advance into Russian-occupied territory.[19]
If implemented properly, a concept such as KRAB could make life very difficult for any wireless UAV force. To this day, however, Russian video jamming is still a localised and unsystematic practice. This illustrates the Russian armed forces’ inability to systematise bottom-up tactical innovations, if only to accentuate its own advantages. Russian video jamming remains a matter of volume: manufacturers and units prioritise the mass production and acquisition of shtory, in a bid to maximise the gross yield of total interference.
Conclusion
The developments of Shtora-class jammers demonstrates the importance of bottom-up innovations in initiating radical operational shifts and shaping demand for new materiel. Russian EW forces were faced with the growing quantity and ever-improving sophistication of Ukrainian SUAVs and their enabling C2 systems. Rather than await enhanced, high-end control link jammers, EW technicians correctly identified the vulnerability of analogue video signals and immediately began pursuing their suppression and denial as a low-hanging fruit. This was a palliative measure born out of necessity, not a radical technical revolution. It nevertheless succeeded in sustaining electronic warfare’s leading role in countering adversarial FPV UAVs and SUAVs, to this day. It also spurred the creation of an entire new product class, which successfully draws from the growing number and capability of ELINT receivers, sensors, and stations. Both sides have wholly adopted and scaled video jamming and transformed it into one of the war’s most unique and determining TTPs.
[1] Ibid.
[2] Zaborodskyi, M, Watling, J, Danylyuk, OV and Reynolds, N ‘Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: February-July 2022’, 30th November 2022 @ accessed 26th July 2025.
[3] Remler, B, Segre, J, ‘From Factory Floor to Battlefield: How the Interneat of Things Democratized Precision Guidance in Ukraine’, 10th November 2025 @ accessed 10th January 2026.
[4] See for example cybershafarat.com, ‘MILELRS v2.30 firmware introduces substantial upgrades based on ExpressLRS 3.3.2.’, 4th June 2025 @ accessed 12th December 2025.
[5] Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, ‘The state has commissioned one million Ukrainian drones’, 8th August 2024 @ accessed January 2026; Abramova, Y, ‘Shmihal vidpvoviv, chi zmozhe Ukraina vypustyty 1 million droniv 2024 roku, ta khto same ce realizuye’, 1st February 2024 @ accessed 5th January 2026.
[6] Khalilov, R, ‘If the UAV situation doesn’t change, we’ll be at the negotiating table within a year: FPV drones and their role in warfare’, 12th July 2023 @ accessed 12th December 2025; ‘Voennye RF cherez perekhvat video raspoznali taktiku dronov-kamikadze VSU’, 25th October 2025 @ accessed 12th December 2025.
[7] Ibid.
[8] ‘Proekt ‘Arkhangel’, 25th February 2024 @ accessed 5th January 2025.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Author’s confidential information.
[11] ‘Proekt ‘Arkhangel’.
[12] Author’s confidential information.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Mittal, V, ‘Russia is Developing a New Soldier-Worn Counter-Drone Jammer’, 29th July 2025 @ accessed 17th November 2025.
[18] ‘Poleznaya Nagruzka (Useful Payload)’, 25th October 2025, @ accessed 21st October 2025.
[19] Priollon, G, ‘Ukrainian Intelligence’s Remarkable Seizure of Russia’s New Anti-Drone System’, 14th May 2025 @ accessed 17th November 2025.
