ISLAMABAD: In one of the most significant air defence achievements inrecent South Asian military history, Pakistan successfully neutralizedbetween 78 and 79 Israeli-origin killer drones during India’s OperationSindoor in late April 2025. What made this episode particularly remarkablewas Pakistan’s simultaneous demonstration of advanced electronic warfarecapabilities by achieving multiple confirmed soft-kills against supersonicBrahMos cruise missiles — a feat that current NATO electronic warfaresystems deployed in Ukraine have not yet accomplished against similarhigh-speed platforms.
The four-day escalation that began on 24 April 2025 witnessed Indialaunching what New Delhi described as “focused punitive strikes” using acombination of loitering munitions, kamikaze drones and stand-off precisionweapons. According to senior officials from Pakistan’s Joint StaffHeadquarters who briefed the media on 3 May 2025, the first wave consistedprimarily of Israeli-manufactured HAROP and HARPY-NG loitering munitionsalong with several unidentified variants believed to be upgraded SkyStrikerderivatives supplied through third-party channels. Pakistani integrated airdefence forces engaged these platforms across the entire eastern theatrefrom Kashmir to southern Punjab using a layered combination of kineticinterceptors and next-generation soft-kill electronic warfare systems.
Defence analysts have particularly focused on Pakistan’s performance in thecyber-electromagnetic spectrum domain during the confrontation. Multipleindependent technical assessments later confirmed that at least five toseven BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles launched during the early morninghours of 26 April 2025 were successfully subjected to soft-kill measures,forcing them either to deviate from programmed flight paths and crash inunpopulated areas or to self-destruct through induced guidance failures.This capability represents a significant milestone as the BrahMos, with itsMach 2.8-3.0 terminal speed and sophisticated jam-resistant seeker, hadpreviously been considered extremely difficult to defeat through purelyelectronic means.
Pakistan’s air defence architecture during Operation Sindoor reportedlyintegrated several recently inducted systems including the indigenous ZoneDenial Layered Air Defence Weapon System (ZDLADS), upgraded LY-80/HQ-9Pbatteries, FM-90 short-range systems and a new family of vehicle-mounteddirected energy and high-power microwave platforms still officiallyclassified. The soft-kill success against BrahMos is believed to have beenprimarily achieved by a combination of advanced broadband jamming,DRFM-based deception techniques and targeted data-link disruption appliedagainst the missile’s command-guidance and terminal seeker phases.
Military observers noted with interest that Pakistan achieved these resultswhile operating under strict rules of engagement that prohibited deepcounter-strikes into Indian territory, limiting its response primarily todefensive actions within its own airspace and immediate border zones.Despite this constraint, the overall performance of Pakistan Air Force andArmy Air Defence Command was described by several retired Western officersas “extraordinarily competent” given the technological disparity in certainsegments of the engaged weapons systems.
The neutralization rate of approximately 92-94% for the Israeli-origindrone swarm represents one of the highest success ratios recorded againstmassed autonomous systems since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.Pakistani officials emphasized that this result was achieved withremarkably low expenditure of kinetic interceptors, preserving expensivesurface-to-air missiles for higher-value threats while relyingpredominantly on electronic countermeasures for the majority of engagements.
International reaction to the incident has been mixed. While Westerndefence journals acknowledged the technical sophistication displayed byPakistani forces, several editorials expressed concern about the rapidproliferation of advanced electronic warfare capabilities in South Asia.Russian and Chinese military publications, by contrast, highlightedPakistan’s performance as evidence of successful indigenisation andintegration of multi-layered defence architectures in the face of Westernand Israeli-origin precision strike technologies.
Read Top Stories
The Operation Sindoor episode has already triggered accelerated doctrinaldebates within several NATO air forces regarding the adequacy of currentelectronic warfare training and equipment against supersonic and hypersonicthreats, particularly when employed by nations possessing mature integratedair defence networks. Several European procurement programmes havereportedly added “BrahMos-class threat emulation” to their 2026-2028 testschedules as a direct consequence of the April 2025 engagements.
As both capitals return to cautious diplomatic engagement, military expertscontinue to study the brief but intense air battle as a potential watershedmoment in the evolution of modern integrated air and missile defence,especially regarding the growing effectiveness of next-generation soft-killsolutions against some of the world’s most advanced conventionally-armedcruise missiles.
Source:https://www.dawn.com/news/1892345/pakistan-air-defence-operation-sindoor-analysis
Tags: Pakistan, India, BrahMos, Operation Sindoor, Electronic Warfare
ogimageimage-name
