# When Jamming Stops Working

> Jammers were the first answer to small drones. Fibre-optic cable, mobile-network control and onboard autonomy are taking that answer away.

- Published: 20 October 2026
- Author: Ghulam Mujtaba (https://drosonic.com/about.html)
- Publisher: DroSonic OSINT (https://osint.drosonic.com/), the research arm of DroSonic (https://drosonic.com/)
- Confidence: moderate
- Web page: https://osint.drosonic.com/assessments/drone-jamming-limits.html

## Key questions

**Why doesn't jamming stop all drones?**
A jammer works by drowning out a drone's radio control link. Drones steered through a fibre-optic cable have no radio link to jam, drones on mobile networks look like ordinary phones, and drones with onboard autonomy can finish an attack after the link is lost.

**Can fibre-optic drones be jammed?**
No. They are controlled through a physical cable, so there is no radio link to block. Reporters Without Borders' 2026 safety guide says electronic warfare is ineffective against them and that they can only be detected by sight or by sound.

## Key numbers

- **1 → 7** jammer modules one Ukrainian unit needed during 2024 (as drones spread across frequencies)
- **25–30 km** fibre-optic spools in Ukrainian production (50 km experimental)
- **0** radio links to jam on a fibre-optic drone (detectable only by sight or sound)

## Bottom line

**Jamming works by attacking a drone's radio link, and the drones that matter most are learning to do without one.** In Ukraine, one electronic-warfare company's jammers went from one module to seven during 2024 as Russian drones spread across frequencies, and then fibre-optic drones arrived with nothing to jam. Over Belgium's Kleine-Brogel air base in 2025, a jamming gun fired at a drone failed to bring it down. At Leipzig/Halle airport in 2026, a drone controlled over the mobile network reportedly looked like an ordinary phone to the anti-drone system. Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb showed drones finishing their attacks with onboard target recognition when links dropped. Jamming still defeats many drones. But a defence built around it now has predictable holes, and detection that does not depend on the radio link is what closes them.

## Four ways round the jammer

| Method | What it does to the radio link | Seen where |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency spread — more bands | Spreads control across many frequencies, so jammers must cover them all | Russian FPVs in Ukraine, 2024 |
| Fibre-optic control — no radio | Replaces the radio link with a cable | Both sides in Ukraine; Kramatorsk 2025 |
| Mobile-network control — hidden in plain sight | Uses SIM cards, so the drone looks like a phone | Leipzig/Halle 2026; Poland 2025; reportedly Spiderweb 2025 |
| Onboard autonomy — link optional | Finishes the attack after the link is lost | Spiderweb 2025; machine-vision FPVs |
Legend: Removes the radio link entirely · sources below

## From one module to seven

A frontline account from Ukraine shows how fast the jamming contest moved. Senior Lieutenant Ihor Shutyi, who commands an electronic-warfare company, told Euromaidan Press that a single 900 MHz jamming module was enough until spring 2024. As Russian FPV drones spread across 750–1050 MHz and beyond, his unit needed four to five modules by summer and seven by autumn. Seven 50-watt modules outgrew a pickup truck's generator. Then came fibre-optic drones, against which "there was, in fact, nothing to counter them." EW, he said, is "gradually losing the battle against frontline quadcopters." ([Euromaidan Press](https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/06/26/is-the-electronic-warfare-era-over-a-frontline-ew-officers-story-of-ukraines-drone-tug-of-war)) The article is labelled as advertorial; we use it for the commander's first-hand account.

![Chart of jamming modules one Ukrainian electronic-warfare company needed in 2024: one in early 2024, four to five by summer, and seven by autumn](https://osint.drosonic.com/assets/img/assessments/drone-jamming-limits/jammer-modules.png)

Figure: **The jammer arms race — *one module, then seven*** Every new band the drones used meant another module, more power and more weight for the jamming crew. Credit: Diagram: DroSonic OSINT · original · from a Ukrainian EW commander's account to Euromaidan Press

## The fibre-optic drone

A fibre-optic drone trails a hair-thin cable to its operator and sends nothing through the air. Ukrainian manufacturers have put 25–30 km spools into production, with 50 km still experimental. ([Taifun](https://taifun.army/en/fiber-optic-drones/)) Reporters Without Borders' 2026 safety guide for frontline journalists puts the consequence plainly: electronic warfare is ineffective against these drones, and they can be detected only visually or by sound. ([RSF guide](https://rsf.org/en/protection-against-russian-kamikaze-drones-rsf-publishes-guide-journalists-working-ukraine)) Russia has used them against cities well behind the front, including Kramatorsk in October 2025. ([Euromaidan Press](https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/10/05/russia-hits-kramatorsk-with-fiber-optic-drone-immune-to-ukrainian-jamming/))

![A Ukrainian FPV quadcopter hovering low over dry grass with a cylindrical fibre-optic spool beneath it and a thin cable trailing to the ground](https://osint.drosonic.com/assets/img/assessments/drone-jamming-limits/fibre-optic-fpv.jpg)

Figure: **A fibre-optic FPV — *the cable is the link*** The thin line trailing from the spool is the entire control link. There is nothing in the air for a jammer to hit. Credit: Photo: ArmiyaInform · CC BY 4.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UA_fiber-optic_FPV_drone_02.webp)

## Drones on the phone network

The second route round the jammer is to use a link the defender cannot simply block: the mobile network. At **Leipzig/Halle Airport** in August 2026, the explosive-laden drone reportedly used a SIM card for remote control, which made it look like an ordinary mobile phone to the airport's anti-drone system. The system reportedly failed to detect it. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Leipzig_Airport_drone_attack)) Some of the Russian decoys that crossed into **Poland** in September 2025 carried Polish SIM cards. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_drone_incursion_into_Poland)) Jamming a mobile network near an airport or a town would cut off everyone else's phones too.

Even conventional radio drones can defeat a handheld jammer. Over **Kleine-Brogel** in November 2025, Belgian soldiers fired a jamming gun at a drone and failed to disable it; the defence minister suggested a frequency mismatch or range. ([Euromaidan Press](https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/11/02/unidentified-drones-repeatedly-breach-airspace-over-belgiums-f-35-site-storing-us-nukes-suspects-not-found/))

## When the drone finishes the job alone

The third route is to make the link unnecessary at the end. In **Operation Spiderweb** on 1 June 2025, Ukraine's security service launched quadcopters from trucks near Russian airbases thousands of kilometres from Ukraine. According to reporting compiled on the operation, the drones ran open-source ArduPilot software and used AI-based automatic target recognition to cope with communication delays and signal loss; an analyst suggested they also used SIM cards over mobile networks. ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spiderweb)) RSF's guide warns journalists about the same capability on the front line: drones with machine vision can lock on and complete the final phase of an attack even if the link is lost. ([RSF guide](https://rsf.org/en/protection-against-russian-kamikaze-drones-rsf-publishes-guide-journalists-working-ukraine))

![A first-person view from a Ukrainian drone diving onto a burning Tu-95 bomber on an airfield, with flight data overlaid and the word FAILSAFE across the screen](https://osint.drosonic.com/assets/img/assessments/drone-jamming-limits/spiderweb-failsafe.jpg)

Figure: **Spiderweb, 1 June 2025 — *"FAILSAFE" on the screen*** A frame released by Ukraine's security service from a drone striking a Tu-95 at Olenya. The on-screen display reads "FAILSAFE", the flight-controller mode for a lost or degraded link, as the drone reaches its target. Credit: Image: Security Service of Ukraine · CC BY 4.0 · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2025-06-01_DroneAttack_SBU_(Burning_Plane).jpg)

> A jammer fights the link. *Fibre, phone networks and autonomy each take the link out of the fight.*

## Who may jam at all

In the United States there is a further constraint: almost nobody may jam. The 2020 federal interagency advisory notes that jamming and spoofing should be evaluated against federal criminal laws, including aircraft sabotage provisions, and are "likely to implicate laws relating to the RF spectrum." ([U.S. DOJ, FAA, DHS & FCC](https://www.justice.gov/media/1084061/dl)) Mitigation authority rests with certified government agencies; our report [Allowed to Listen, Not to Shoot](https://osint.drosonic.com/assessments/us-counter-drone-law-detection.html) covers who they are. For airports, utilities and other private sites, jamming is not an option, and passive detection is the part of the chain they can control.

### Confidence

#### How sure we are, and what would change it

**High confidence** that fibre-optic drones cannot be jammed and that mobile-network control defeats link-based detection; both follow from how the links work and are confirmed in multiple sources.

**Moderate confidence** in specific accounts: the Ukrainian EW commander's figures come from a single interview on a page labelled advertorial; Spiderweb's control methods are reported by analysts, not confirmed by Ukraine in full; Leipzig's detection failure is reported, not officially confirmed.

**What would change it:** affordable counters to fibre-optic drones that work through the cable, or published evidence that link-based detection catches mobile-network drones reliably.

## Detect the drone, not its radio

Jamming is not obsolete. It still defeats large numbers of radio-controlled drones and will stay in every counter-drone kit. What has changed is that the most dangerous drones are designed around it: on a cable, on the phone network, or able to finish alone. A defence that first has to find a drone's radio link will miss exactly those.

The answer is detection that senses the drone itself. Radar and cameras do that within their limits; [passive acoustic detection](https://drosonic.com/#technology) does it for the small, low drones that radar and RF find hardest, by hearing the propellers that no control method can silence. At [DroSonic](https://drosonic.com/) that is the gap we are closing. Our report [When the Detector Stays Silent](https://osint.drosonic.com/assessments/fibre-optic-drones-acoustic-detection.html) shows the same gap from a journalist's point of view.