I have been meaning to do a thread on the one small attribute of the costs and benefits associated with the U.S. provision of money and material to the Ukraine in its defense against Russia. #Ukraine #ElectronicWarfare #intelligence #CostofWar 1/23
War and the preparations for war are extremely expensive. The development of weapon systems is extremely costly and often involves many steps that are not often considered. Let's start by stating that the U.S. Defense Budget is ~$734.34B (2019) 2/23
The U.S. has pledged to Ukraine to date ~$51.08B according ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-aga… of which ~$26.99B is for military related spending. 3/23
U.S. Mil Aid to Ukraine has equated to approximately 3.7% of U.S. Defense Spending. But These numbers hide the return on investment. Yes, you read that right the U.S. is getting a lot back from Ukraine on a regular basis for its investment. 4/23
I will only focus on Electronic Warfare Systems. I am focused on this area because that is what I have spent the most time on since 2014. 5/23 apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/…
On March 22, 2022 Ukraine captured a 1RL257 Krasukha-4. As noted in the image below this is a highly advanced EW system. This system was likely transferred to U.S. Intelligence Officials. 6/23 
On September 5, 2022 Ukraine captured a Silok-01 EW system to counter UAVs defence-blog.com/ukrainian-sold… 7/23
On September 9, 2022 Ukraine captured a RP-377UVM1L Electronic warfare system to jam and suppress radio channels. 8/23 euromaidanpress.com/2022/09/07/ukr…
On September 9 @oryxspioenkop reported that Ukrainians found an SAP-518SM 'Regata' jamming pod designed to jam advanced air defenses, specifically NATO SAM and Air-to-Air Threats 9/23
Prior to September 14 (Sept 8th?) Ukraine also captured a R-149AKSh-1 Signals Command Vehicle (C2 System) 10/23 defenceview.in/ukraine-captur…
On September 15, 2022 Ukraine captured an R-381T2M System. 11/23 odin.tradoc.army.mil/mediawiki/inde…
These systems are extremely valuable battlefield tools. Some undermine the C2 capabilities of Ukrainians, other to control or undermine UAVs, some to protect Air and or ground assets. Combined they provide increasing knowledge of Russia's capacity to wage war. 12/23
The U.S. spent about $3.17B on EW systems in 2021 and the global market for EW systems was about $25.74B in 2022. 13/23 globenewswire.com/news-release/2…
The development of EW systems is extremely expensive and can have multi-year programs running into the billions of dollars. These programs have typically been informed by intelligence collection from across the Intelligence community. 14/23
Development of new EW systems is part science and part guesswork on what the opposing side's capabilities are. The collection of actual EW systems from the battlefield is a major intelligence win. 15/23
The capture of these systems does several things. 1. Saves money in the development phases of EW systems. Reverse engineering and having opposing systems on hand saves time and money. 16/23
2. It allows the U.S. and allies to counter and surpass/bypass in capability enemy systems. Particularly systems that might control UAVs or provide cover for aircraft. 17/23
3. It allows the U.S. and allies to build better communications systems to counter adversary efforts to listen in. 18/23
4. It provides potential vectors for allied intelligence services to collect and understand the TTPs of the adversary. 19/23
Combined the capture of these systems likely saves the U.S. Tax payer billions of dollars. It also saves the lives of American and allied service members who one day might have to face such devices in a war. 20/23
The War in Ukraine is horrific. It has cost Ukraine hundreds of billions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of lives. But the war is exposing and shedding light on the TTPs of Russia. It is exposing their best technologies - EW Systems, Artillery, Counter Battery Radar, 21/23
Air Defense, Naval Defense, Cyber, C2, and so many more to intelligence collection. While we give Ukraine billions of $ of equipment, we are in return gaining billions of $ worth of intelligence. Because Russia is such a prolific supplier of weapons around the world 22/23
This knowledge extends outward to many other countries. To look on our provisioning of Ukraine as unidirectional is inaccurate. We give weapons, We get allies, and intelligence. #StandFirm #StandWithUkraine 23/23
I have assuredly missed some systems. So please do add them if you know of them.
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