Ukraine Misleads Russian Missiles with Lima… A €58,000 Defense System
Kyiv is increasingly relying on the domestic electronic warfare system “Lima” to disrupt and redirect Russian drones and missiles.
One of the developers of the “Lima” system explained to the American magazine “Politico” how the system works by interfering with the guidance systems of incoming weapons.
Unlike traditional air defense systems, which destroy incoming threats through direct interception, the “Lima” system jams and spoofs satellite navigation signals, causing Russian weapons to veer off course.
The system has become an increasingly important layer within Ukraine’s air defense architecture at a time when Russia is intensifying its long-range attacks and Kyiv continues to face shortages of expensive interceptor missiles.
The “Lima” system, developed by “Cascade Systems,” a Ukrainian defense startup registered in the United States, generates powerful jamming fields that disrupt satellite navigation.
When satellite signals are blocked, Russian long-range weapons can continue flying using inertial navigation systems, but their accuracy may drift by around two kilometers for every 100 kilometers traveled, significantly reducing the likelihood of hitting their targets.
€58,000
Alchemist, one of the developers of the “Lima” system and commander of “Night Watch,” an electronic warfare unit within Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, said: “When the Lima system is activated, it further increases missile deviation.”
He added: “In addition to merely disrupting navigation, we use spoofing technology by replacing coordinates with others several kilometers away. We can make their missiles fall into fields instead of striking their targets.”
Part of the appeal of the “Lima” system lies in its size and cost.
Unlike many other tactical jamming devices, the “Lima” system can cover vast areas of land, protecting critical infrastructure, according to “Politico.”
The production cost of each unit reaches up to 3 million hryvnias, or approximately €58,000, depending on the version, according to “Cascade.”
The company estimates that protecting a major city requires between 30 and 100 units, costing around €5 million in total, which is roughly equivalent to the price of a single “Patriot PAC-3” missile.
“Cascade” has supplied more than 400 “Lima” units so far, and the military began using them in July 2024.
Their deployment was later expanded to include the protection of civilian infrastructure in October 2025.
The Peru Story
According to the company, the “Lima” system successfully jammed 20,500 “Shahed” drones and redirected dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles over the past eighteen months.
Maxym Skorytskyi, head of the electronic warfare department of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, stated that the latest versions of the “Lima” system are capable of disrupting long-range weapons, including ballistic missiles, which rely on systems such as the Russian satellite navigation network “GLONASS.”
The “Lima” system jams the satellite navigation signals used by Russian missiles and drones and feeds them false coordinates. According to the developers, some previous attacks were diverted by deceiving incoming weapons into believing they were located in Peru.
