Bukovel-AD

Bukovel-AD is a Ukrainian electronic warfare system built to detect, classify, and jam the radio links and satellite-navigation signals that small reconnaissance and strike drones depend on. Developed by Infozahyst , the Kyiv-based signals-intelligence and EW house that also produces the Plastun SIGINT suite, the system is fielded by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and has become one of the more frequently named platforms in the country’s layered counter-UAS effort.

The system pairs a wideband radio-monitoring receiver with directional and omnidirectional jamming antennas, mounted in either stationary configurations or on light tactical vehicles for shoot-and-scoot use near the front line. Operators can sweep the surrounding spectrum for the control-and-telemetry signatures of common reconnaissance UAVs — historically Russian platforms such as the Orlan-10, Eleron, ZALA, and Granat families — and then either jam the command link, suppress the GNSS signal feeding the drone’s autopilot, or both at once. Public Ukrainian sources have described detection ranges out to roughly a hundred kilometres in favourable conditions, with engagement at shorter ranges where transmit power and antenna pattern allow. Threat classification and prioritisation are handled by onboard software so a small crew, rather than a dedicated SIGINT cell, can run the engagement loop.

Bukovel-AD entered Ukrainian service before the 2022 full-scale invasion, with earlier variants reportedly deployed in the Donbas during the lower-intensity phase of the war. After February 2022 it was rushed into wider distribution as Russian drone reconnaissance and corrective-fire operations expanded along the entire line of contact. Ukrainian brigades and territorial defence units have used it to push back Russian ISR drones screening artillery, and to disrupt the navigation of loitering munitions and one-way attack UAVs probing rear-area targets. The system has been described in Ukrainian and Western reporting as a workhorse of the country’s mobile EW fleet, alongside Bukovel-AD variants and complementary systems such as Anklav and Khortytsia-M.

Infozahyst has continued to iterate on the platform, with reporting through the war pointing to expanded frequency coverage, improved automated classification, and integration into wider Ukrainian air-defence and EW networks. Bukovel-AD sits in the same category as Russian Borisoglebsk-2 and Western counter-UAS jammers such as Northrop Grumman’s Drake or Leonardo’s Falcon Shield, but its profile has been shaped less by export marketing than by the simple fact that it has been used, in volume, against a peer adversary’s drone fleet for several years.