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Post by TsarSamuil on Dec 12, 2012 17:10:32 GMT -5
Russia Confirms Pullout from Gabala Radar in Azerbaijan.
MOSCOW, December 11 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that the Russian army will no longer rent the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan.
Alexander Lukashevich, a spokesman for the ministry, said that Russia stopped using the radar station on Monday and that the Russian Embassy in Baku “has sent a relevant note to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.”
The diplomat added that there were no proposals from Azerbaijan on resuming talks to prolong the lease agreement.
The lease, signed in 2002, was valid until December 24, 2012. Moscow and Baku have been in talks about prolonging the lease on Gabala until 2025 for more than a year.
The Gabala station, which has a staff of 1,100, is capable of tracking missile launches and trajectories over the territories of Iran, Turkey, China, Pakistan, India, Iraq and Australia, as well as most of Africa and parts of Indian and Atlantic oceans.
Russia will replace the Gabala radar, a crucial element of its missile defense system, with a new station in Armavir in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Region, then-commander of Russia’s Space Forces, Oleg Ostapenko, said in September.
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Russia’s Gabala Pullout No Security Risk – Defense Ministry.
Moscow, December 15 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s decision to stop using the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan will not hurt its security, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
“This is not critical for our country. The facility in Armavir (Krasnodar Region) is on experimental combat duty, and is already fulfilling the tasks of covering those areas for which the Gabala radar station had been responsible,” Deputy Defense Minister, Colonel General Oleg Ostapenko told RIA Novosti on Saturday.
He stressed that the rocket attack warning systems are fully functional. “And, going forward, we will simply further grow our capacity,” he added.
On December 10, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry went on record saying that Russia was abandoning the Gabala facility due to a disagreement over the rental terms.
The next day the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that Russia was no longer using the radar station, and that the Russian Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, “has sent a relevant note to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.”
The lease, signed in 2002, was to expire on December 24, 2012. Talks between Moscow and Baku over extending the lease to 2025 had been underway for over a year.
The Gabala station could track missile launches and trajectories over the territories of Iran, Turkey, China, Pakistan, India, Iraq and Australia, as well as most of Africa and parts of Indian and Atlantic oceans.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Dec 12, 2012 17:48:52 GMT -5
Moscow to get new missile defence system, tests start 2013.
primetimeru Dec 12, 2012
Moscow is to get a new missile defense system. Details are being kept hush-hush, but testing is scheduled to start next year. It comes as Russia gives up a key component of its anti-missile shield, located in Azerbaijan. Prime Time's Eunan O'Neill has more.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Dec 17, 2012 15:52:36 GMT -5
Russia to Develop Precision Conventional ICBM Option.
MOSCOW, December 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia may develop a non-nuclear precision-guided payload capability for its new hundred-ton class liquid-fueled ICBM if need be, Strategic Missile Forces (RSVN) Commander Col. Gen. Sergei Karakayev said on Friday.
"The availability of a powerful liquid-fueled ICBM allows us the capability of creating a strategic high-accuracy weapons system with a conventional payload with practically global range, if the US does not pull back from its program for creating such missile systems," he said.
The new liquid-fuel ICBM will be able to penetrate any missile defense system likely to emerge in the near future, he said.
"The higher energy provided by liquid fuels gives it more varied and effective methods of countermeasures against global missile defense screens including space-based elements of those systems," he said.
Analysts say arming ICBMs with conventional warheads for long-range attack might produce problems as well as solutions.
"A conventionally-armed ICBM was one option considered as part of Washington’s Prompt Global Strike studies," said Douglas Barrie, air warfare analyst at the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies. "The advantages of reach and speed are self-apparent, however, the issue of differentiating between a nuclear and a conventional warhead once the system was launched but prior to impact raises a concern of how those targeted might respond," he added.
Russia is developing a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to replace all its current "fifth-generation" long-range missile systems including the Yars and Topol M, Karakayev said.
The RSVN has carried out a small number of test-firings of a prototype of the new missile, the last of which was carried out from the Kapustin Yar range on October 24 from a mobile launcher.
"This missile was built with maximal use of technologies developed in the course of producing fifth-generation systems in order to get it into service more quickly and reduce costs," he said.
Karakayev said it was too early to discuss details of such work for "cleary obvious reasons" but added "the results of the launches show that the makers of this missile technology are clearly on the right track."
It is the first formal announcement from the RSVN command that the fifth-generation solid-fueled ICBM would be deployed; but previously unnamed sources had said it would be deployed by 2014.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Dec 22, 2012 17:21:05 GMT -5
Russian Military District Tests New Air Defense Systems.
MOSCOW, December 22 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Southern Military District has moved a step closer to adopting the new S-400 Triumf air defense systems, the district’s press service confirmed on Saturday.
Further successful target-shooting trials of the new air defense systems brings the district closer to the point at which the S-400 Triumf systems will be put on combat duty, replacing the S-300 PM systems, the district's press service confirmed on Saturday.
The Southern Military District was created in October 2010. It comprises the republics of Adygea, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, Karachay-Cherkessia, North Ossetia, Chechnya, and the Krasnodar, Stavropol, Astrakhan, Volgograd and Rostov regions.
The S-400 Triumph long- to medium-range surface-to-air missile system can effectively engage any aerial target, including aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise and ballistic missiles at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles) and an altitude of up to 30 kilometers (18.6 miles).
Russia already has four S-400 regiments protecting national airspace around Moscow, in the Far East and in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
By 2020, Russia plans to have 28 S-400 regiments, each comprised of two battalions, mainly positioned in maritime and border areas.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Dec 27, 2012 11:19:04 GMT -5
Russia to Bring Back Railroad-Based ICBM – Source.
MOSCOW, December 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will restart production of railway-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), with prototypes to be deployed by 2020, a senior Russian defense industry official said on Wednesday.
Work has already begun on the prototypes, which will utilize exclusively domestically-made components, the official told RIA Novosti on condition of anonymity.
The new missiles will be half the weight of their decommissioned Soviet analogues, allowing them to fit into one railcar, the official added.
The Soviet military deployed its first missile train in 1987, and had 12 of them by 1991. But by 2005 they had all been destroyed under the START II arms reduction treaty with the United States.
However, the treaty’s 2010 replacement, New START, does not prohibit the development of railway-based ICBMs.
The original railway-based system involved SS-24 Scalpel missiles that weighed 104 tons, required three locomotives to move, and were so heavy that they damaged railroad tracks. It was thought that missiles launched from the moving trains were harder to track than stationary launches.
However, prominent Russian military expert Alexander Konovalov said that this apparent return to the cumbersome Soviet technology, even in revamped form, was a “bad idea.”
The return to missile trains is an apparent response to US plans to position elements of its missile defense system in Eastern Europe, said Konovalov, the president of the Institute for Strategic Assessment, a Moscow-based private think-tank.
Russia has claimed the US missile shield will affect its launches, but Konovalov said that the threat is exaggerated. He added that the missile trains were outdated technology.
“We’re better off developing telecoms systems, unmanned drones and precision weapons, not these monsters,” Konovalov told RIA Novosti, speaking about the missile trains.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Dec 27, 2012 11:29:23 GMT -5
Russia to Build Two New Radar Stations in 2013.
MOSCOW, December 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will start building two new radar stations in east Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Territory and in the south Siberian Altai Republic in 2013, Russia’s deputy defense minister said on Thursday.
“New stations will be constructed across Russia, including in Yeniseysk [Krasnoyarsk] and Barnaul [Altai],” Gen.-Col.Oleg Ostapenko told journalists.
Ostapenko said a feasibility study has been performed for the planned construction, which will start on schedule.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that the Russian army will no longer rent the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan. The lease, signed in 2002, was valid until December 24, 2012.
Russia is replacing the Gabala radar station, which has played a crucial role in its missile defense system, with a new system based at Armavir in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Territory.
Ostapenko said the Armavir radar station is in the final stage of testing. “For today, the station is ready to fulfill tasks,” he said adding that the station is due to be put on full combat alert soon.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Dec 27, 2012 12:13:51 GMT -5
Belarus gets more Russian air defense systems.
27.12.2012 18:44
MINSK, 27 December (BelTA) – The first components of the second battery of air defense missile systems Tor-M2 have been shipped to Belarus, the press service of the Belarusian Defense Ministry told BelTA.
The systems are delivered as part of the government arms program for 2006-2015, explained the source.
BelTA has been reminded that the first battery of Tor-M2 systems was delivered to the 120th air defense missile brigade of the Western Operative and Tactical Command of the Air Force and Air Defense in late 2011. In 2012 a unit of the brigade took part in a live firing exercise at the Russian firing range Ashuluk and demonstrated excellent performance.
The new air defense missile systems will greatly improve the fighting capability of the Air Force and Air Defense of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, BelTA has been told.
A Tor-M2 complex enables effective air defense of military and civilian installations. It is capable of completing combat missions in any climatic conditions. The system is an effective tool for destroying aircraft, helicopters, aerodynamic unmanned aerial vehicles, guided missiles and other components of high-precision weaponry at extremely low, low, and medium altitudes in a complicated air and interference environment. Comprising four vehicles, a Tor-M2 battery can simultaneously destroy 16 targets flying from any directions at speeds up to 700mps at a range of up to 12km and at an altitude of up to 10km in any weather conditions. When coupled, a pair of Tor-M2 systems demonstrates enhanced effectiveness due to new data-sharing protocols and target distribution. The systems are fully automated, with human interference minimized as much as possible.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry told BelTA that every year up to 30 and more latest specimens are passed into service. As many as 35 new specimens of military and special hardware were passed into service in 2012. Results of trial performance are being used to pass into service three more specimens. As part of the government defense order for the year 2012 over 200 new specimens of armaments and materiel have been purchased.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Jan 8, 2013 13:58:05 GMT -5
Russia to Get 20 New Aerospace Defense Radars.
MOSCOW, January 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces will received about 20 new radar stations this year, a Defense Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.
The radars will include systems of different classes and modifications, including Gamma-S, Nebo-U and Podlyot-K, as well as modernized Desna and Kasta systems, Col. Alexei Zolotukhin said.
He said on Sunday the Russian military had tracked about 40 launches of foreign and domestic ballistic missiles and space rockets last year. The new radar stations that have been put into operation as part of the Russian missile attack early warning system enable it to track not only ballistic targets and space objects but also aerodynamic targets, he added.
The system will be even more effective following the creation of the Integrated Space Tracking and Combat Command and Control System. Russia is able to reliably detect ballistic missile launches and monitor and control all probable directions for a missile attack, Zolotukhin said.
The ministry also said Russia will start building new radar stations later this year.
Russia announced it will no longer rent the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan. The lease, signed in 2002, expired in December. Russia is replacing the Gabala radar station, which has played a crucial role in its missile defense system, with a new system based at Armavir in Russia’s southern Krasnodar Territory.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 4, 2013 12:27:07 GMT -5
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 16, 2013 18:42:28 GMT -5
US drops key European missile defense component.
RT.com
March 16, 2013 04:16
The United Stated is abandoning a key part of its Eastern European missile defense plan due to development problems and funding, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has announced. The focus, he said, will be shifted to perceived threats from North Korea.
Several interceptors in Poland and Romania, the deployment of which had been the source of heavy criticism from Moscow, will be scrapped.
Hagel told the press on Friday that the decision was made as part of an overall restructuring of the country's missile defense plans, with an eye to stopping perceived threats from Iran and North Korea.
The restructuring of the program will see $1 billion shifted to add some 14 new interceptors to the 26 existing ones in Alaska designed to counter potential North Korea missiles.
Washington claims that its decision was prompted by a need to address North Korea's faster-than-anticipated progress in nuclear weapons development. The changes to the program will free up the money to do so, Hagel said.
Explaining the rationale behind the initial plans for American outposts in Poland and Romania, Hagel said, "the purpose was to add to the protection of the US homeland already provided by our current [ground-based interceptors] against missile threats from the Middle East."
But, he added, "The timeline for deploying this program had been delayed to at least 2022 due to cuts in Congressional funding. Meanwhile the threat matures. By shifting resources from this lagging program ... We will be able to add protection against missiles from Iran sooner, also providing additional protection against the North Korean threat.”
However, the Poland- and Romania-based SM-3 Block IIB ballistic interceptors were only one component in a multifaceted missile defense program. While Phase 4 – the now-scrapped interceptors – are off the table, phases 1 through 3 are set to continue as planned.
"The missile deployments the United States are making in phases 1 through 3 of the European Phased Adaptive approach including sites in Poland and Romania will still be able to provide coverage of all European NATO territory as planned by 2018," Hagel said.
Kremlin concerns
The Kremlin has argued that deployment of the systems in its neighborhood was aimed at countering Russian missiles and undermining its nuclear deterrent, though Washington said the system was aimed at countering threats from Iran.
During initial negotiations with the George W. Bush administration, Moscow offered Washington the use of an alternative site in Azerbaijan in order to counter the Iranian threats evoked by the US.
The missile shield also faced strong domestic opposition in Poland and Romania, bringing the Obama administration in 2009 to announce that it was canceling its plans for the project.
But a reformulated scheme was announced a month later in October 2009, showing plans to place smaller, mobile SM-3 ballistic missile interceptors in the region by 2018.
Besides the placement of the interceptors, Russian officials have also opposed a radar installation set to be based in the Czech Republic. The base would enable US forces and their NATO partners to monitor activities in European Russian airspace.
Hagel stressed that other components of American missile defense plans in Europe would continue, and that Washington’s commitment in Europe "remains ironclad," but made no reference to Kremlin objections to the program.
An anonymous senior State Department official told the AP that while Poland and Romania were informed of the decision ahead of the announcement, Russia was not.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 19, 2013 12:52:46 GMT -5
Russia unmoved by U.S. missile shield changes.
Beta
World | March 18, 2013 | 11:41
MOSCOW -- Russian Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov says Moscow's position has not changed after the U.S. announcement of changes in the plan to deploy its anti-missile system.
"I do not see the connection between Russia's opposition to the deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Europe and the statement of U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel," Ryabkov told the Russian daily Kommersant.
Hagel announced last weekend that the U.S. now plans to shift a billion dollars from efforts to deploy the shield in Poland and Romania to setting up interceptors in its own federal state of Alaska.
According Ryabkov, the "strategic uncertainty" regarding the deployment of the U.S. and NATO missile shield remains unchanged.
The Russian official said that Hagel's announcement was not seen as a "concession to Russia" and that there was no reason for Moscow to change its position on the issue.
The deployment of interceptors is part of the last phase of the program which Moscow believes is aimed at stopping Russian missiles.
Washington argues that the system is intended to counter possible attack "from Iran or North Korea".
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 28, 2013 5:45:23 GMT -5
Joint Russia-NATO Missile Shield Inefficient - Rasmussen.
MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday said a unified missile shield under joint Russia-NATO command is not a workable approach.
Rasmussen was asked to assess the potential of missile defense systems under joint Russia-NATO command during his address at an International Model Russia-NATO council meeting in Moscow.
“I do not think the most efficient way would be to have a unified, integrated system,” Rasmussen said, adding that “the right way forward would be to have a Russian system and a NATO system, but to make sure that these two systems work together.”
Rasmussen explained that he would like to see two separate but jointly-staffed missile defense system centers, one Russian - one NATO, that cooperate in fighting threats, exchange key data, work together to analyze and assess new threats, and hold exercises.
Russia and NATO initially agreed to cooperate on the so-called European missile defense system at the Lisbon summit in November 2010.
However, further talks between Moscow and the alliance have foundered over NATO’s refusal to commit to a joint system and to grant Russia legal guarantees that the NATO system would not be aimed against Russia’s strategic nuclear deterrent.
The alliance has vowed to continue developing and deploying its missile defenses, regardless of the status of missile defense cooperation with Russia.
The United States announced earlier in March that plans to install the fourth and final phase of its missile interception system in Poland have been abandoned in favor of installing 14 new ground-based interceptors in Alaska.
Moscow welcomed the move but said it was not enough to alleviate Russia’s concerns.
Russia and the United States have recently agreed to resume regular consultations on missile defense at a deputy ministerial level and address the issue at a security conference in Moscow due to take place on May 23-24.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Apr 25, 2013 14:21:51 GMT -5
Russia Launches Rail-Mobile ICBM Project. MOSCOW, April 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology has started an R&D program to develop new rail-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems, Deputy Defense Minister Yury Borisov said on Tuesday. The work is in the initial stages, he said, adding the cost of the program has yet to be determined. He provided no timeframe for the program. The Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology is the developer of the Bulava (submarine-based) and Topol and Yars (land-based) ballistic missile systems. A prototype system could be deployed by 2020, a Russian defense industry official told RIA Novosti in December. The new missiles will be half the weight of their decommissioned Soviet analogues, allowing them to fit into one railcar, he added. The original rail-mobile system included SS-24 Scalpel missiles which weighed 104 tons, required three locomotives to move, and were so heavy that they damaged railroad tracks. The missiles were based on trains in order to make them harder to find than stationary launchers, complicating a counter-strike. The Soviet military deployed its first rail-portable long-range missile in 1987, and had 12 of them by 1991. Rail-mobile missiles were removed from service in 2002 and the last base dismantled in 2007 under the START II arms reduction treaty with the United States. However, the treaty’s successor, START III, agreed in 2010, does not prohibit development of rail-mobile ICBMs. Russian military analyst Alexander Konovalov said last year this apparent return to cumbersome Soviet concepts, even in revamped form, was a “bad idea” and that missile trains were outdated.  |
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Post by TsarSamuil on Apr 25, 2013 15:10:00 GMT -5
Russia to Get New Short-Range Air Defense System in 2015.
MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian military will start receiving the new Morfey short-range air defense system in 2015, Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko said on Wednesday.
Morfey, a mobile air defense system with an effective range of five kilometers (three miles), has been in development since 2007.
“I think the first few systems will be put in service sometime in 2015,” Ostapenko, who is a former commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces, told reporters in Moscow.
Morfey will complement the Vityaz, S-400 and S-500 air defense systems in a future aerospace defense network able to engage targets at ranges from five to 400 kilometers, and at altitudes from five meters to near space.
The medium-range Vityaz air defense system, which is due to replace the outdated S-300PS system, is still under development, Ostapenko said.
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Post by TsarSamuil on May 20, 2013 14:52:55 GMT -5
Did Tito die and get reborn as Putin?..damn that traitor! If this was medieval times, Putin would have sold weapons to the Mongol Horde or the Ottomans, damn that Soviet idiot, he is not a real Russian!
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Russia Ready to Develop Long-Range Air Defense System with Turkey.
LIMA (Peru), May 19 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is ready to develop jointly with Turkey a long-range air defense complex based on S-300 surface-to-air missile systems, state arms seller Rosoboronexport head Sergei Ladygin said on Sunday.
Turkey launched a tender for the purchase of long-range air defense systems long ago but no winner has been announced to this day.
“Russia is ready to offer as part of the tender a joint Russian-Turkish product based on the Antey-2500 system [the export version of the S-300 system]. For example, to mount the air defense system on the Turkish chassis,” Ladygin said at the weapons exhibition in the Peruvian capital of Lima.
Rosoboronexport has also proposed that Russia and Turkey join efforts to promote this air defense system on the markets of third countries, he said.
“That is, it is possible to discuss selling the license for the production of this system in other countries of the world,” he said.
The advanced version of the S-300 missile system, called S-300PMU1, has a range of over 150 kilometers (over 100 miles) and can intercept ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes, making it effective in warding off air strikes.
The S-300V/Antey 2500 (SA-12 Gladiator/Giant) consists of a new command vehicle, an array of advanced radars and up to six loader vehicles assigned to each launcher.
Rosoboronexport has also offered to supply Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker fighter jets to Brazil outside a tender for the purchase of modern weaponry, Ladygin said.
Russia with its Su-35 fighter jet withdrew in 2009 from the tender's short list, which now includes Sweden with Gripen, the US with F-16 and France with Rafale.
“Although Russia has withdrawn from the tender, we nevertheless made a parallel offer to Brazil for out-of-tender participation with Pantsir missiles and Su-35 fighters. Our proposal is being examined,” he said.
Russia is ready to transfer the entire technology for the Su-35 production, he said.
“We are ready to transfer 100 percent of the technology for producing the Su-35 fighter, even with the elements of the technology for the fifth-generation aircraft,” he said.
The Pantsir-S, produced by Russia's KBP, is a gun-missile system combining a wheeled vehicle mounting a fire-control radar and electro-optical sensor, two 30-mm cannons and up to 12 57E6 radio-command guided short-range missiles, and is designed to take on a variety of targets flying at low altitudes.
The Pantsir can engage targets up to 20 km (12 miles) by missiles and 4 km (2.5 miles) using cannons, KBP claims.
The export version of the system, Pantsir-S1, has been sold to the United Arab Emirates, Syria and Algeria.
The Su-35 multirole fighter, powered by two 117S engines with thrust vectoring, combines high maneuverability and the capability to engage several air targets simultaneously using both guided and unguided missiles and weapon systems.
The aircraft has been touted as "4++ generation using fifth-generation technology."
Rosoboronexport also intends to sign a contract by the end of the year with Peru to supply 24 Mil Mi-17 helicopters, Ladygin said.
The Mi-17V-5 is designed for utility cargo work and can carry up to 36 passengers or four tons. The machine features advanced multifunction cockpit displays and upgraded TV3-117VM engines.
The Peruvian army currently operates about 100 Mi helicopters.
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