Media: Ukraine turns to budget Lima systems to disrupt Russian attacks

As Ukraine conserves its scarce air defence missiles, it is increasingly relying on the domestically developed Lima electronic warfare system to jam and divert Russian drones and missiles.

One of Lima’s developers explained to POLITICO that the system operates by disrupting the guidance systems of incoming weapons.

The system, called Lima, was developed by the defence startup Cascade Systems, which is registered in the United States. Rather than physically destroying aerial targets, the system interferes with satellite navigation signals, reducing the accuracy of missiles and drones or forcing them to deviate from their intended coordinates.

According to the developer, the system can generate powerful electronic interference, create “blind spots” for drones, and in some cases disorient them, causing them to veer away from their targets. It is also claimed that drones can be fed false navigation data.

“When Lima is on, it makes missile deviation even greater. In addition to simply suppressing navigation, we use spoofing and the substitution of coordinates by several kilometers. We can make their missiles fall in fields instead of hitting their targets,” said the developer known as Alchemist, who designed the Lima system and commands the Night Watch electronic warfare unit within Ukraine’s territorial defence forces. For security reasons, he requested to be identified only by his call sign.

The main advantage of the system is its cost, about €58,000 per unit, significantly cheaper than interceptor missiles for the Patriot air defence system. More than 400 such systems have reportedly already been delivered to Ukraine and are being used to protect both military and civilian infrastructure.

The company estimates that protecting a large city would require between 30 and 100 units, costing roughly €5 million—around the same price as a single PAC-3 missile for the Patriot system.

Cascade has already delivered over 400 Lima systems. The military started deploying them in July 2024, and their use was later expanded in October 2025 to include the protection of civilian infrastructure as well.

By Jeyhun Aghazada