On operational duty at the missile attack warning center
By the end of the twentieth century, Russia possessed the A-135 zone strategic missile defense system and anti-aircraft missile systems of various modifications, which had certain capabilities for implementing object anti-missile defense. The decision taken in 1993 and formalized by a presidential decree to create a unified aerospace defense system (VKO) in Russia turned out to be unrealized. Moreover, in 1997, the country's Air Defense Forces, which were the prototype of the Aerospace Defense Forces, were disbanded, which significantly complicated the creation of the country's aerospace defense system in the future. The transfer of the rocket and space defense forces from the Strategic Missile Forces to the created Space Forces, which followed in 2001, did not correct this situation.
Only after the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty in June 2002 did the military-political leadership of Russia realize the need to return to the issue of creating an aerospace defense system in the country. On April 5, 2006, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved the Concept of Aerospace Defense of the Russian Federation until 2016 and beyond. This document determined the goal, directions and priorities of the creation of the country's aerospace defense system. However, as often happens in Russia, the period from the adoption of a conceptual decision to the implementation of concrete steps to implement it took a long time. By and large, until the spring of 2010, the issues of creating the country's aerospace defense system did not find real embodiment in the plans for military development.
TIGHTENING THE BLANKET
The Ministry of Defense began to fulfill the task of creating a system of aerospace defense of the country only after the President of Russia approved the "Concept for the construction and development of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation for the period until 2020" on April 19, 2010. In it, within the framework of the formation of a new image of the Russian Armed Forces, the creation of the country's aerospace defense system was defined as one of the main measures of military development. However, most likely, the practical implementation of this decision was delayed. This can explain the intervention of the President, who, speaking in the Kremlin at the end of November 2010 with a regular Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, set the Ministry of Defense the task of combining the existing air and missile defense systems, warning of missile attack and control of outer space under the auspices of the strategic command being created. IN TO. But even after these presidential instructions, the Defense Ministry did not stop discussing the appearance of the future aerospace defense system. The Air Force High Command and the Space Forces command "pulled the blanket" each over himself. The Academy of Military Sciences and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation did not stand aside.
On March 26, 2011, a general reporting and election meeting of the Academy of Military Sciences was held with the participation of the heads of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and other central military command and control bodies. At this meeting, along with summing up the results of the Academy's work in 2005-2010, topical issues of military development at the present stage were considered. Speaking with a report, the President of the Academy, General of the Army Makhmut Gareev, spoke about the need to create an aerospace defense of the country as follows: “Given the modern nature of armed struggle, its center of gravity and main efforts are shifted to airspace. The leading states of the world place their main stake on gaining supremacy in the air and space by conducting massive aerospace operations at the very beginning of the war, striking strategic and vital targets throughout the depth of the country. This requires the solution of the tasks of aerospace defense by the combined efforts of all branches of the Armed Forces and the centralization of command and control on the scale of the Armed Forces under the leadership of the Supreme Command and the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and not the re-creation of a separate branch of the Armed Forces."
In turn, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, General of the Army Nikolai Makarov, in his speech to the participants of this meeting, outlined the conceptual approaches of the Russian General Staff to the creation of the country's aerospace defense system. He said: “We have a concept for the creation of aerospace defense by 2020. It tells you what, when and how to do it. We have no right to be mistaken in this issue, which is most important for the country and the state. Therefore, some positions of the concept are now being revised. The governing body of the VKO is formed under the General Staff, and the General Staff will also manage it. It must be understood that the Space Forces are only one element in the aerospace defense system, which must be multi-layered in terms of heights and ranges, and integrate existing forces and assets. Now there are very few of them. We are counting on the production of products by the military-industrial complex, which will go literally from next year."
Thus, it can be stated that at that time the developments of the Academy of Military Sciences and the General Staff regarding the basic principles of building the country's aerospace defense completely coincided. It seemed that the only thing left was to formalize these developments by an appropriate presidential decree, and after that it would be possible to start creating a system of the country's aerospace defense. However, the situation began to develop in a completely different scenario. Unexpectedly for the Russian expert community and for reasons unknown to him, the General Staff suddenly abandoned those approaches to the formation of the control body of the country's aerospace defense, which were promulgated in March 2011 by General of the Army Makarov. And, as a consequence of this, at a meeting of the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense held in April 2011, a decision was made to create the Aerospace Defense Forces on the basis of the Space Forces.
NEW KIND OF TROOPS
The decision taken by the board of the Ministry of Defense, in many respects fateful for the cause of military development, was quickly implemented by the corresponding presidential decree of Dmitry Medvedev, issued in May 2011. This was done contrary to the generally accepted logic of military development in Russia - first, the issue of creating a system of aerospace defense of the country was to be considered at a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation with the adoption of an appropriate decision, and only then this decision is formalized by a presidential decree. After all, the creation of the aerospace defense system is not a purely departmental affair of the Ministry of Defense, but a national task. And, accordingly, the approach to solving this problem should be adequate to its significance and complexity. But, unfortunately, this did not happen.
On November 8, 2011, Dmitry Medvedev, who was in the presidency, issued a decree appointing the leadership of the Aerospace Defense Forces. As expected, Lieutenant-General Oleg Ostapenko was appointed commander of the Aerospace Defense Forces and was relieved of his post as commander of the abolished Space Forces.
The structure of the new type of troops of the Armed Forces, the Aerospace Defense Forces, formed on December 1, 2011, includes the actual command of the Aerospace Defense Forces, as well as the space command and the air defense and missile defense command.
Inside the multifunctional radar "Don-2N" in Sofrina near Moscow
According to available information, the Aerospace Defense Forces included:
- 1st State test cosmodrome "Plesetsk" (ZATO Mirny, Arkhangelsk region) with the 45th separate scientific testing station (test site "Kura" in Kamchatka);
- The main test space center named after G. S. Titova (ZATO Krasnoznamensk, Moscow region);
- The main missile attack warning center (Solnechnogorsk, Moscow region);
- The main center for reconnaissance of the space situation (Noginsk-9, Moscow region);
- 9th division of anti-missile defense (Sofrino-1, Moscow region);
- three air defense brigades (transferred from the disbanded Strategic Command of the Air Defense Forces, which was part of the Air Force);
- parts of support, security, special troops and rear;
- Military Space Academy named after A. F. Mozhaisky (St. Petersburg) with branches;
- Military Space Cadet Corps (St. Petersburg).
According to the modern views of Russian military science, aerospace defense as a complex of national and military measures, operations and combat actions of troops (forces and means) is organized and carried out in order to warn of an aerospace attack by the enemy, its repulsion and defense of the country's facilities, groupings of the Armed forces and population from air strikes and from space. At the same time, under the means of aerospace attack (SVKN) it is customary to understand the totality of aerodynamic, aeroballistic, ballistic and space aircraft operating from the ground (sea), from airspace, from space and through space.
To fulfill the tasks arising from the above goals of aerospace defense, the created Aerospace Defense Forces now have a missile attack warning system (SPRN), an outer space control system (SKKP), a zone strategic missile defense system A-135 and anti-aircraft missile systems in service air defense brigades.
What are these forces and means and what tasks are they capable of solving?
ROCKET ATTACK WARNING SYSTEM
The Russian early warning system, as well as the similar American system of the SPRYAU, consists of two interconnected echelons: space and ground. The main purpose of the space echelon is to detect the fact of the launch of ballistic missiles, and the ground echelon - upon receipt of information from the space echelon (or independently) to provide continuous tracking of launched ballistic missiles and warheads separated from them, determining not only the parameters of their trajectory, but also the area of impact accurate to tens of kilometers.
The space echelon includes an orbital grouping of specialized spacecraft, on the platform of which sensors are mounted that can detect the launch of ballistic missiles, and equipment that registers information received from the sensors and relays it to ground control points through space communication channels. These spacecraft are placed in highly elliptical and geostationary orbits in such a way that they can constantly monitor all missile-hazardous regions (ROR) on the Earth's surface - both on land and in the oceans. However, the space echelon of the Russian early warning system does not have such capabilities today. Its orbital constellation in its existing composition (three spacecraft, one of them in a highly elliptical orbit and two in a geostationary orbit) carries out only limited control of the ROP with significant time interruptions.
In order to build up the capabilities of the space echelon of the early warning system and improve the reliability and efficiency of the combat control system of the strategic nuclear forces of Russia, it was decided to create a Unified Space Detection and Combat Control System (EKS). It will include new-generation spacecraft and modernized command posts. According to Russian experts, after the adoption of the CEN into service, the Russian early warning system will be able to detect the launches of not only ICBMs and SLBMs, but also any other ballistic missiles, no matter where they are launched. Data on the timing of the creation of the TSA are not published. It is possible that this system will be able to perform its tasks no later than 2020, since by this time, as General of the Army Makarov said, the creation of a full-fledged system of the country's aerospace defense will be completed in Russia.
The ground echelon of the Russian early warning system currently includes seven separate radio engineering nodes (ortu) with over-the-horizon radar stations (radars) of the Dnepr, Daryal, Volga and Voronezh types. The detection range of ballistic targets with these radars is from 4 to 6 thousand km.
On the territory of the Russian Federation, there are four ortu: in Olenegorsk, Murmansk region, in Pechora of the Komi Republic, in the villages of Mishelevka, Irkutsk region, and Lekhtusi, Leningrad region. The first and third of them are equipped with the rather outdated Dnepr-M radar, the second with the more modern Daryal radar, and the fourth with the new Voronezh-M radar. Three more ortu are located in Kazakhstan (the settlement of Gulshad), Azerbaijan (the settlement of Gabala) and Belarus (the settlement of Gantsevichi). The first of them is equipped with the Dnepr-M radar, the second with the Daryal radar, and the third with the fairly modern Volga radar. These ortu are serviced by Russian military specialists, but only the ortu in Belarus is Russian property, and the other two are rented by the Russian Ministry of Defense from Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, paying monetary compensation for this in the amount established by intergovernmental agreements. It is known that the term of the agreement on the lease of ortu in Gabala ends in 2012, but the issue of prolongation of this agreement has not been resolved. The Azerbaijani side is setting up lease terms that are unacceptable for Russia. Therefore, most likely the Russian side at the end of 2012 will refuse to lease an ortu in Gabala.
Until recently, the contour of the ground echelon of the Russian early warning system included two ortu with the Dnepr radar station in Ukraine (in the cities of Mukachevo and Sevastopol). These ortu were serviced by Ukrainian civilian personnel, and the Russian Ministry of Defense, in accordance with an intergovernmental agreement, paid for the information they supplied. Due to the great deterioration of the equipment of the Ukrainian ortu (no funds were invested in their modernization) and as a result of the decrease in the quality of the information they supply, Russia in February 2008 terminated the agreement with Ukraine. At the same time, a decision was made to build a new Voronezh-DM radar near the city of Armavir in the Krasnodar Territory in order to close the gap in the radar field of the Russian early warning system due to the exclusion of Ukrainian radars from it. Today, the construction of this radar is almost completed, it is in trial operation, the expected date of its deployment on combat duty is the second half of 2012. By the way, according to its capabilities, this radar is capable of compensating for the exclusion of the radar in Gabala from the contour of the ground echelon of the Russian early warning system.
At present, this echelon provides control of the ROR with a break in the continuous radar field in the northeastern direction. The enhancement of its capabilities is envisaged by the construction of new Voronezh-type radars along the perimeter of the borders of the Russian Federation, with the prospect of refusing to lease foreign orts in the future. Work is already underway to build the Voronezh-M radar station in the Irkutsk region.
At the end of November 2011, the Voronezh-DM radar station was put into trial operation (put on trial combat duty) in the Kaliningrad region. It will take about another year to put this radar on alert. As for the radar station being built in the Irkutsk region, in May 2012 its first stage was put into trial operation. This radar is expected to become fully operational in 2013, and then the existing "gap" in the radar field in the northeast direction will be closed.
SPACE CONTROL SYSTEM
The Russian SKKP currently has two information-measuring ortu. One of them, equipped with the Krona radio-optical complex, is located in the village of Zelenchukskaya in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, and the other, equipped with the Okno optical-electronic complex, is located in Tajikistan, near the city of Nurek. Moreover, according to the agreement concluded between Russia and Tajikistan, the ortu with the Okno complex is the property of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
In addition, for the detection and tracking of space objects, the radio-technical complex for monitoring space vehicles "Moment" in the Moscow region and the astronomical observatories of the Russian Academy of Sciences are used.
The means of the Russian SKKP provide control of space objects in the following zones:
- for low- and high-orbit objects - at altitudes from 120 to 3500 km, according to the inclinations of their orbits - from 30 to 150 degrees with respect to the earth's axis;
- for objects in geostationary orbits - in heights from 35 to 40 thousand km, with standing points in longitude from 35 to 105 degrees east longitude.
It should be admitted that the technical capabilities of the current Russian SKKP to control space objects are limited. It does not observe outer space in the altitude range of more than 3500 km and less than 35 thousand km. To eliminate this and other "gaps" in the Russian SKKP, according to the official representative of the press service and information of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for the Aerospace Defense Forces, Colonel Alexei Zolotukhin, “work has begun on the creation of new optical, radio engineering and radar specialized space control devices”. It is possible that the timing of the completion of these and other works and the adoption of new means of control of outer space will not go beyond 2020.
ANTI-MISSION DEFENSE OF MOSCOW
It is pertinent to note here that the Russian early warning systems and the SKKP, as well as similar American systems, are interconnected and form a single reconnaissance and information field for airspace control. In addition, the A-135 missile defense system radar systems are also involved in the formation of this field, whose detection range for ballistic targets is 6 thousand km. Thus, a synergistic effect is achieved, which provides a more effective solution to the tasks assigned to each of the above systems separately.
The Russian A-135 missile defense system is deployed around Moscow in an area limited by a radius of 150 km. It includes the following structural elements:
- ABM command-measuring point, equipped with a command-computing complex based on high-speed computers;
- two sectoral radars "Danube-3U" and "Danube-3M" (the latter is presumably under restoration), which ensure the detection of attacking ballistic targets and issue preliminary target designations to the missile defense command and measurement point;
- multifunctional radar "Don-2N", which, using preliminary target designation, provides capture, tracking of ballistic targets and guidance of anti-missiles at them;
- mine launching positions of short-range intercept missiles 53Т6 (Gazelle) and long-range interception 51Т6 (Gorgon).
All these structural elements are combined into a single whole by a data transmission and communication system.
The combat operation of the A-135 missile defense system, after it is activated by the combat crew, is carried out in a fully automated mode, without any intervention of the service personnel. This is due to the extremely high transience of the processes occurring when repelling a missile attack.
Nowadays, the capabilities of the A-135 missile defense system to repel a missile attack are very modest. The 51T6 interceptor missiles have been taken out of service, and the service life of the 53T6 interceptor missiles is outside the warranty period (these missiles are located in silo launchers without special warheads, which are stored). According to expert estimates, after being brought to full readiness, the A-135 missile defense system is capable of destroying, at best, several dozen warheads attacking the defended area.
Antenna-feeder device of the Voronezh-DM radar
After the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty, the military-political leadership of Russia made a decision to deeply modernize all structural elements of the A-135 missile defense system, but this decision is being implemented extremely slowly: the backlog of planned dates is five or more years. At the same time, it should be noted that even after all the modernization work has been completed in full, the A-135 missile defense system will not acquire the appearance of a strategic missile defense system of the country, it will remain a zonal missile defense system, albeit with expanded combat capabilities.
Air defense of the CENTRAL INDUSTRIAL AREA
In the three air defense brigades transferred from the Air Force, covering the Central Industrial Region, there are a total of 12 anti-aircraft missile regiments (32 divisions), armed in the overwhelming majority of the S-300 mobile anti-aircraft missile system (SAM) of three modifications. Only two anti-aircraft missile regiments of a two-division composition are armed with a new generation S-400 mobile air defense system.
The family of S-300PS, S-300PM, S-300PMU (Favorit) and S-400 (Triumph) air defense systems are designed to protect the most important political, administrative, economic and military facilities from air strikes, cruise and aeroballistic missiles of the " Tomahok ", ALKM, SREM, ASALM and ballistic missiles of short, short and medium range. These air defense systems provide an autonomous solution to the problem of announcing an air attack and the destruction of aerodynamic targets at ranges up to 200-250 km and heights from 10 m to 27 km, and ballistic targets at ranges up to 40-60 km and altitudes from 2 to 27 km …
The obsolete S-300PS air defense system, which was put into service in 1982 and whose supplies to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were discontinued in 1994, is subject to replacement, and the S-300PM air defense system, which was put into service in 1993, is upgraded under the Favorite program to level S-300PMU.
In the State Armament Program of the Russian Federation for 2007-2015 (GPV-2015), it was planned to purchase 18 divisional sets of S-400 air defense systems. However, in 2007-2010, the Almaz-Antey Air Defense Concern supplied the Russian Air Force with only four divisional sets of S-400 air defense systems, and this despite the fact that there are no supplies of this anti-aircraft missile system abroad. It is obvious that the state program for the purchase of the S-400 air defense system, adopted in 2007, was failed. Such a negative trend has not undergone any changes after the approval of the new State Armament Program of the Russian Federation for 2011–2020 (GPV-2020). According to the plan, in 2011, the Russian Air Force was to receive two regimental sets of S-400 air defense systems, but this did not happen. According to the First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Alexander Sukhorukov, "the delivery dates for these weapons are shifted to 2012 due to the late conclusion of contracts."
GPV-2020 in terms of the supply of S-400 air defense systems to the troops, the development of promising anti-aircraft missile systems and their adoption, is much more intense than GPV-2015. So, by 2015, it is planned to supply the troops with nine regimental sets of S-400 air defense systems, bringing the 40N6 long-range anti-aircraft guided missile (SAM) to condition. In 2013, it is necessary to complete the development work begun in 2007 on the Vityaz air defense system by conducting state tests (so that this anti-aircraft missile system will be adopted by no later than 2014). In 2015, the development of the new generation S-500 anti-aircraft missile system, which began in 2011, should be completed.
To carry out such a large-scale program, it will be necessary not only to establish proper order with the conclusion of contracts for the development and supply of weapons and to ensure rhythmic and full financing for them, but also to solve the extremely difficult task of modernizing and increasing the production capacities of enterprises of the military-industrial complex. In particular, as Alexander Sukhorukov said, "two new plants for the production of S-400 systems are to be built, which will be in demand in the future, including for the manufacture of S-500 systems." However, the confusion that arose in 2011 in Russia with the state defense order (SDO), and doomed it to non-fulfillment in the main range of weapons, as well as the serious problems that arose with the SDO in 2012, give rise to great doubt in the implementation of the planned plans for GPV-2020.
The government of the Russian Federation will need enormous efforts with the adoption of extraordinary measures in order to correct the emerging negative situation with the development and production of high-tech and science-intensive weapons. Otherwise, it may turn out that the Aerospace Defense Forces will be created, and the tasks assigned to them, due to the lack of the necessary weapons systems, will not be able to be fulfilled.
Along with the problem associated with equipping the Aerospace Defense Forces with modern weapons, it will be necessary to resolve another equally important and complex problem due to the need to create a single combat information and control system of the Aerospace Defense and integrate into a single reconnaissance and information field for controlling the aerospace of all available heterogeneous means observation and target designation.
At present, the information and control system, which the Aerospace Defense Forces inherited from the abolished Space Forces, is not associated with a similar Air Force system, which includes nine aerospace defense brigades and fighter aircraft designed to perform air defense missions. There is no clarity about the military air defense / missile defense, which is subordinate to the command of the military districts. Its information management system is now completely autonomous. To combine the capabilities of these systems to solve a single task - the defense of the country, the groupings of the Armed Forces and the population from air and space strikes - it will be necessary to resolve a very complex technical problem.
The same order of complexity will need to be overcome when solving the problem of pairing the reconnaissance and information assets of the space command and the command of the air and missile defense of the created Aerospace Defense Forces, since now these means do not form a single field of control of the air and outer space. This situation excludes the possibility of using strike interceptors for ballistic targets using external target designation sources, as is the case in the American global missile defense system, which significantly narrows the combat capabilities of the aerospace defense system created in Russia.
TO THE NEW LOOK OF EKR - A HUGE DISTANCE
In order for the aerospace defense system of the country to acquire the appearance conceived by the Russian Ministry of Defense, it will be necessary to invest huge financial and human resources. But will these investments be justified?
As Alexei Arbatov, head of the Center for International Security of the IMEMO RAN, rightly noted, “massive non-nuclear air-missile strikes against Russia are an extremely unlikely scenario. In its favor, apart from the mechanical transfer to Russia of the experience of the recent local wars in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, there are no arguments. And no aerospace defense will protect Russia from American nuclear strikes (just as no missile defense system will cover America from Russian nuclear missile weapons). But then Russia will have neither money nor technical capabilities to reflect real threats and challenges in the foreseeable decades."
Common sense dictates that priority tasks in the aerospace defense sphere should be determined, on the solution of which the main efforts of the state should be concentrated. Russia has and will have a fully creditworthy nuclear deterrent, which serves as an "insurance policy" against direct military threats on a large scale. Hence, the task of the first stage is to provide anti-aircraft and anti-missile cover for the Russian strategic nuclear forces.
The task of the second stage is to improve and build up the anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense of the Armed Forces groupings, which are intended to operate in possible theaters of operations. That is, it is necessary to develop military air defense / missile defense, since Russia's participation in local military conflicts such as the "five-day war in the Caucasus" in 2008 cannot be ruled out.
And thirdly, with the remaining resources available, efforts should be directed at anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense of other important state facilities, such as administrative and political centers, large industrial enterprises and vital infrastructure.
It is irrational to strive to create a continuous anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense of the entire territory of Russia, and it is unlikely that such an aerospace defense can ever be created. The proposed ranking in solving problems will allow, at an acceptable cost of resources, to create in Russia in the foreseeable future an aerospace defense system, which, together with the potential for nuclear deterrence, will be able to fulfill its main purpose - to prevent large-scale aggression against the Russian Federation and its allies and provide reliable cover for the Armed Forces groupings on TVD.
