Russian Space Troops to Cease Using All Foreign-Based Radar Stations – Commander

In the near future Russia’s Space Troops plan to stop using all radar stations located abroad, commander of the Space Troops Col- Gen Vladimir Popovkin has said.

In an ITAR-TASS report on 25 January, Popovkin was quoted as saying that all radar stations located in the former Soviet republics “depend on the will of [foreign] states – Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Belarus”. “We are going to stop using all stations located abroad. We do not want to depend on the will of the countries on whose territory they are located,” the commander added.

This firstly concerns the radar stations near Mukacheve and Sevastopol in Ukraine, since they are serviced by civilian rather than military specialists – personnel from Ukraine’s national space agency.

“Our citizens work [at the stations] in Belarus and Kazakhstan, but in Ukraine, for example, the Ukrainian national space agency is responsible for the radar stations. So what reliability can there be?” asked Popovkin.

“A complex project to develop a missile attack early warning system has been drawn up to ensure that all Russian territory is covered,” said Popovkin. While refusing to name the exact locations of the new system, the commander did say that “there are plans to create a new early warning station in the south, nearer to the Urals, and another nearer to Krasnoyarsk, so that the north-east of the country is covered”. Generally, early warning stations will remain where they were – Murmansk, Pechora and elsewhere.

“The areas where the new stations will be built have been provisionally chosen; one of them will face south and be closer to the Urals, another will be located in the Far East, nearer to the north,” said the commander, as quoted by ITAR-TASS.

In another ITAR-TASS report on the same day, Popovkin was quoted as saying that the creation of a radar station in Armavir would free Russia from dependency on Ukraine, as well as saving money. “In terms of its technical and tactical capacity, the radar station in Armavir is no worse than those in Sevastopol and Mukacheve. In terms of accurate measurement of parameters it is significantly better, since it works in the ultra-high-frequency waveband,” said the commander. In contrast, he noted that the radar stations in Ukraine “work in the VHF waveband, have a range of around 4,000 km, they consume up to 2 MW of power and have a combat staff of 40 people”. “Furthermore, there is an extremely complicated jamming environment in the zone of operation of those radar stations, and Ukraine is not taking effective measures to improve things,” he added.

By the end of 2008 the Space Troops plan to put the Armavir radar station on trial combat duty, and bring the complement of the station up to a level that will allow it to take over monitoring of those areas currently covered by the Sevastopol and Mukacheve stations in Ukraine.

Speaking about the longer-term prospects of the Space Troops, Popovkin said that Russia would “monitor space from space,” ITAR- TASS reported later on the same day. This will require the deployment of a group of 16-18 space devices. “In the long term we will achieve radar stations of varying wavebands,” he said. “Such radar stations will locate objects in space in the VHF waveband, monitor them in the ultra-high-frequency waveband, and the super- high-frequency band will be needed to deflect things,” he said.

In addition, the Space Troops intend to deploy a network of quantum-optical stations to monitor space (the Sazhen system), ITAR- TASS reported.

“We have deployed a number of stations at a series of measurement points, including at Baykonur. In future these stations will be deployed throughout the country,” said Popovkin, as quoted in the report. “Why are we doing this? The work of these stations depends on atmospheric conditions, so they need to provide backup for each other,” he said. “In particular, these stations make it possible to observe the deployment of satellites of the GLONASS global positioning system,” he added.

Originally published by ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1210, 1216, 1254, 1325 25 Jan 08.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.