Long before the Russian invasion on February 24, the Ukrainian military recognized the threat posed by drones and ordered special anti-jamming rifles from Lithuania. A video shows a “Sky Wiper” EDM4S in use at the front, the acquisition of which was apparently not easy.
Drones, in various forms, play a key role in the Ukraine war. Among other things, commercially available copters are used to spy on enemy positions, correct artillery fire or drop explosive devices. The Ukrainian army recognized the importance of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) early on and ordered a special defense weapon from Lithuania as early as 2020, the EMP rifle EDM4S (Electronic Drone Mitigation 4 – System/Electronic Drone Defense 4 – System). Called “Sky Wiper”.
All of the weapon’s components are mounted on an aluminum frame, including four housings with directional antennas and a reflex sight. The “Sky Wiper” weighs only 5.5 kilos and is only about one meter long. Equipped with a stock and trigger, it resembles a rifle and is handled accordingly.
According to Armed Conflicts, you simply point the gun at the target and pull the trigger. The EDM4S doesn’t shoot bullets, it’s essentially a handheld jammer that disrupts the drone’s communications and navigation. Depending on the model, it then stops, returns to the starting point or sinks down. These are safety functions for incidents involving the drones intended for civilian use.
In a video shared by Nexta, among others, a “Sky Wiper” takes a DJI Mavic Pro out of the sky, which sinks to the ground to be recovered. On the military website “Funker 530”, however, a US veteran suspects that the recording was staged and probably came from training. If it had actually been a Russian drone, the soldiers would have quickly fled, he writes. Because the opponent would have learned their position through the action, he writes.
In fact, the “Sky Wiper” seems to be quite effective with a range of three to five kilometers. There are pictures that are supposed to prove that an EDM4S also “shot down” an Eleron-3 reconnaissance drone. This is a delta wing aircraft from the Russian manufacturer ENICS. However, an EDM4S can hardly pose a threat to large drones such as the Iranian Shahed-136; according to the description, it can only fight small to medium-sized UAVs.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops also appear to have a larger number of the anti-drone rifles, after only 36 were initially ordered, according to the Ukrainian website Defense Express. In October 2021, the Ukrainian broadcaster TSN showed the weapon being used on the Donbas front for the first time. The well-known Lithuanian journalist Andrius Tapinas donated 1.5 million euros in the summer to buy 110 “Sky Wipers” for the Ukrainian military. He christened them “Orchrists” (“orc slayers”), he tweeted.
In an interview with the Obozrevatel website in December 2020, then-Ukrainian commander-in-chief Ruslan Borysovych Khomchak said the Russian army had used UAVs since the beginning of the 2014 war, while its own troops did not yet have drones. The defense is a problem, the UAVs can hardly be fought with the usual firearms.
According to Khomchak, Ukraine initially tried to have an anti-drone gun manufactured by a local company by the end of 2020. But the systems developed were not suitable for war, the money for them was wasted.
After domestic procurement failed, Chomchak ordered the EDM4S from NT Service in Lithuania. The rifle was previously tested in the combat zone, said the military, who is now the first deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
In fact, in March 2021, Lithuanian President Gitanas Naus?da personally handed over the first EDM4S to representatives of Ukraine. But initially not much followed, complained Chomchak. This was due to the fact that the weapons were procured directly by the Ministry of Defense without intermediaries via the official NATO platform. That meant a lot of bureaucracy, he said.
According to Army Today, the purchase was made through the NATO Support and Supply Agency (NSPA). This is remarkable because it is an organization through which NATO countries make joint procurements in order to save costs and effort.
It is also interesting what the French-Israeli Chamber of Commerce reported in May, citing “Intelligence Online”. Accordingly, the EDM4S is not a Lithuanian development at all, but comes from the company Skylock, which belongs to the Israeli armaments group Avnon. NT Service is just a partner interposed so as not to embarrass Israel, which is reluctant to take a stand on Ukraine’s side.
There is no further evidence of this, and NT Service proudly emphasizes in its PR video that the EDM4S is listed in the NATO catalog of references and statistics. But such a deal would fit in with the current position of the Israeli government. Systems capable of intercepting and disrupting drones are considered advanced defense technology in Israel and are not approved for sale in Ukraine.
The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister site, Zman Yisrael, reported in September that an Israeli defense contractor was supplying anti-drone systems to the Ukrainian military through Poland. The company informed the Ministry of Defense that it was unaware that Warsaw was acting as an intermediary for the transfer.
(This article was first published on Friday, October 07, 2022.)