The elimination of holes in the missile defense of Russia is coming to an end
The collapse of the USSR led, among other things, to the fact that Russia was left without a full-fledged rocket cover - the radar stations remaining on the lands of the former Soviet republics were aging and became a cause for blackmail. In recent years, conversations in the Western media that the Russian Federation no longer has a full-fledged “shield” have become dangerously frequent. But now this problem is almost solved.The defense holding OJSC RTI is commissioned by the military in the north-west of Russia to create a powerful radar station that will cover the main missile-dangerous direction. State tests of the high-potential Voronezh-DM radar in the Murmansk region should be completed in a few years, Sergei Boev, head of the holding’s board of directors, general designer of the missile warning system (SPRN), told Interfax. In early October, in the Department of Information and Mass Communications, the Ministry of Defense already reported that the Voronezh network of high-readiness radar stations will be deployed in Russia for the 2018 year.
It is about restoring a previously operating system of early radar detection and warning. It must track all ballistic missile launches from a foreign territory, instantly determine the missile parameters and its trajectory, and transmit this data to the anti-ballistic center. The warning system of a surprise nuclear missile attack is the basis of the country's defense. Considering the size of our state, it requires the work of at least ten super-power radar complexes, which are serviced by whole mono-cities. According to the simple laws of geometry, individual radars cover only a certain angle, ideally, the entire complex should keep under control the perimeter of the country's borders without any “holes”, including the Arctic operational theater of operations - in terms of a rocket attack, it is most dangerous.
In the USSR, the global early warning system was never completed to the end, and the collapse of the country was almost destroyed - the fragments went to Ukraine, Latvia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The fate of the Latvian radar station in the small town of Skrunda was simpler - it stopped its work in the middle of the 90s, and the personnel (the whole city) went to Russia. The Skrunda-1 military town, twice the size of Skrunda itself, founded by the Teutonic knights, turned into a ghost town, and the radar itself — a monstrous building — was blown up by the Latvian authorities. This process was broadcast live and presented as one of the key acts on the path to de-Sovietization and liberation from the Russian occupation. After that, the entire settlement (dilapidated buildings, land, communications) was put up for public sale and sold in 1999 by a certain company for 170 thousand lats (then about 300 thousand dollars, quite cheap). Behind this company, according to rumors, there are some private individuals from Russia, who were simply upset over the years.
The radar station in Azerbaijan in the area of the settlement of Gabala even managed to make some war - she was responsible for the country's southern defense, that is, first of all, for the Middle East. In January, 1991 of the year (that is, during Desert Storm), this station tracked all 302 launches of Tomahawks from American ships and submarines, as well as 15 fails - missile absences on the trajectory and 30 cases of the defeat of American cruise missiles by forces Iraqi Air Defense. This is surprising, but it is a fact - the antediluvian Saddam's air defense really hit down the 10% "Tomahawks", which was a revelation for the Pentagon, who religiously believed then in this miracleweapon. And we know about it thanks to the data obtained from the Gabala radar station.
Until 2002, this station was used without any legal registration. She was served by two thousand Russian troops and about the same number of contracted Azerbaijanis. Its equipment was gradually becoming obsolete, just as gradually Baku was raising a fee for its very existence. At some point, the price reached 300 million a year instead of the initial 15, and Russia suggested that the United States share Gabala as an object of missile defense against Iran, since Washington is so concerned about this. The Americans at first were glad that they would get to a top-secret facility of global significance free of charge, and then they said something like "equipment does not meet the standards already existing (!) In Russia." Finally, in 2013, the object was dismantled, the garrison was removed, and the equipment that can be added to more modern systems was transferred to a new station already on the territory of the Russian Federation. In Azerbaijan, for a while, they simply looked at half a million hectares of vacant land, and then removed them from the balance of the Ministry of Defense. At the same time, some politicians are trying to present Russia with bills for “environmental problems” that were akin to stories from the series "The X-Files" - spontaneous combustion of trees, emission of freon (!) and all that.
The Transcarpathian radar station in the Mukachevo region cost Russia 1,5 a million dollars a year right up to 2006. At the same time, all the personnel were Russian, and the data received in Ukraine did not linger, being immediately transmitted to the missile defense control center in Kaliningrad Solnechnogorsk. In 2005, then-President Viktor Yushchenko suddenly demanded an increase in the rent for the Mukachevo radar station at times, at the same time proposing that it be leased to the USA. Russia refused and disbanded military units listed for the radar station in Mukachevo and for a similar facility in Sevastopol to prevent the appearance of American specialists on them. In 2009, both radars - in Mukachevo and Sevastopol - stopped transmitting information to the Russian Federation and began to work in the interests of Ukraine, but since they did not have such interests, as there was no funding, they were dismantled for scrap.
The history of ultra-precise radar in the region of Kazakhstan's Balkhash is also tragic. It began to be built during the Soviets, and in 1991 – 1992 the construction was frozen. The Kazakh government took over this cargo, but did not overload it and tried to privatize the facility. As a result of a private reconstruction in 2010, the building collapsed, but continues to be listed under the authority of the Russian Aerospace Forces on a rental basis and it seems to even work, although the equipment is outdated.
Thus, in the 90s and a significant part of the “zero” Russia lived without a full-fledged antimissile cover. Fly in, good people. If you look closely at the globe, then all the western and southern directions were completely defenseless. Moreover, the most strategic - the northern - direction remained “empty”, since the operating radars in Pechora - Vorgashor (Komi) and in Olenegorsk (Murmansk) long ago became outdated. Actually, they are being discussed now.
Strictly speaking, this is not the construction of new radars from scratch, but rather modernization - the outdated systems “Daryal” and “Dnepr” worked there. In 1974, at the time of construction, the Olenegorsky complex was considered to be advanced, since it could track a new type of weapon for those times - split warheads. Since then, the equipment has gone ahead, and the complex has not been updated, meanwhile, the closest trajectory of the approach to the Russian Federation of ballistic missiles from the US is through the North Pole. Consequently, the most advanced means of early warning should cover this area.
In the south - in Armavir of the Krasnodar Territory - a new radar has already been built and has started operating on the basis of the Voronezh project; this is the most up-to-date system that has gradually replaced the outdated Soviet-designed complexes. She replaced the deceased Gabala radar station, and the secret “seismic station” in the Abkhaz Eschers, which even avoided the Georgian-Abkhaz war, was avoided in contact with her - he was right on the front line, but he was defended by a Russian marine corps. This system is now responsible for all the southern direction, including the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean (on the issue of Syria and Iraq).
Two radars were built on the direct west direction instead of Skrunda-1. The main one is that in the Kaliningrad region in the region of the resort Solnechnogorsk, it oversees the central direction, focusing on the far warning and the area of the British Isles. It can capture the launch at a distance of 6 thousands of kilometers and, in fact, eliminates the possibility of a rocket attack across the Atlantic. It is duplicated by a similar, but weaker radar station in Belarus in the area of Gantsevichi town in the Baranavichy region. It requires modernization, and Minsk is trying to bargain for the cost of its operation. These negotiations are not critical, but annoying. The completion of the Volga object in Belarus itself was directly related to the dismantling of the radar station in Skrunda, Latvia. At the same time, Ukrainian contractors (outside, we recall 90-e) refused to supply some electronic modules, requesting six times more expensive than the original price. It was the first experience of import substitution in the defense sector - the Ukrainians were simply sent, and the electronics were made in Moscow and Rybinsk. So Russia got rid of Ukrainian contractors in the strategic sphere at a time when no one could think about the war. Volga has an overview of 120 degrees, that is, it not only controls (duplicates) Western Europe, but also partially holds the area of the Norwegian Sea, which is considered promising for an attack from American submarines.
The most powerful radar was built in the Leningrad region in the village Lekhtusi. In theory, it also had to compensate for the loss of Skrunda, but eventually turned into a more complex complex, which is able to control the space from Spitsbergen in the north to Morocco in the south. After modernization, this radar will cover the territory up to the east coast of the United States. Thus, a complex of three stations will cover the western and north-western missile-hazard direction.
In the Asian sector, similar radars are already working in Yeniseisk and Barnaul (as long as they are on expert watch, but their transfer to working condition is a matter of days). But these are supernovae stations. Slightly more “old” (that is, commissioned in 2014 year) is located in Usolye-Sibirskiy in the Trans-Baikal Territory - the so-called “Michelevka” object. Now it is she who oversees the airspace from the west coast of the United States to India. Its antenna field is two times larger than that of a similar radar in the Leningrad region, it controls 240 degrees in azimuth and has 6 sections against 3 in Lehtusi.
Now similar super-large facilities in the Murmansk region and Komi are being commissioned. The Daugava complex (apparently, the developers scoffed at Latvians over Skrunda) in Olenegorsk according to the plan of the Ministry of Defense should be commissioned in 2017, the object in Vorgashor (Komi) - in 2018. It will become the basis of the defense on the north direction, its capabilities exceed even those declared in Michelevka with the same early detection range in 6000 kilometers.
By the way, about two years ago, American sources close to strategic planning began actively promoting the idea that Russia is in principle incapable of withstanding a sudden nuclear missile strike from the United States. This perspective was actively replicated in the Russian liberal media as an argument of the “uselessness” of all attempts to restore the state sovereignty of the Russian Federation in the military sphere. In short, it boils down to the fact that the main attack on the territory of Russia will be inflicted not by mine-based missiles from New Mexico and Arizona across the Atlantic, but from submarines, which must massively move into the Arctic Ocean and the Indian Ocean in the Diego Garcia region, Russia does not have an early warning system in these areas, while the approach time from the Arctic is critically low.
The plan suffered from two flaws that the “military experts” from the liberal deck did not quite understand. Firstly, the American submarines (with all due respect to them) have no experience of ice work, as well as successful confirmed launches. Their attempts to conduct similar tests by Alaska in the last two years were blocked by the Russian fleet, and from Canada they didn’t even try to conduct tests. Secondly, the early detection system is now operational, so that a single missile from the northern direction is useless even at a critical range. Moreover, powerful missile counteraction complexes have already been created there, as well as unique Arctic military bases, which no country in the world has analogues. Then the Western countries were surprised to learn that they did not have an icebreaker fleet. That is, nothing at all, even from Canada and Norway.
Nevertheless, the modernization of the radar complexes in Olenegorsk and Pechora will not complete the construction of the Russian early warning system. In the USSR, it was planned to build 8 stations, most of which were never put into operation. Now it is planned to create a system of 10 stations, of which the majority are already in service or undergoing planned tests. In addition, the satellites are working - the so-called satellite echelon of the missile attack warning system (EWS). It is also constantly updated, but the grouping in geostationary orbit remains unchanged, complementing ground-based radars of both over-horizon and over-the-horizon types.
Do not be afraid. These are defensive systems, although the logic of strategic confrontation also elevates them to the rank of offensive, after which the logical chain of arguments is lost.
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