Back in Soviet times, several early warning radar stations were built in our country, designed to track possible launch zones of enemy strategic missiles. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a large part of these stations ended up on the territory of sovereign states, which entailed the need for additional rental costs. The strategic importance of such systems left our country no choice: for the security of the entire state, it was necessary either to pay new neighbors, or to build over-the-horizon radars on its territory. Until a certain time, Russia did not have the opportunity to invest in the development and construction of new systems, so over time, its neighbors, so to speak, got used to regular rent payments.
In recent days, the topic of over-the-horizon missile warning radars has again appeared in the news feeds. The reason for this was the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan. According to official Baku, the Russian military is suspending the operation of the Gabala radar station (Daryal project). The reason for this is the results of negotiations between Russia and Azerbaijan: negotiating the extension of the agreement on this radar station, the countries could not come to a consensus on the rent. Because of this, the operation of the station is at least temporarily suspended.
Such news about the anti-missile shield in our country immediately caused an ambiguous reaction. Of course, the Gabala "Daryal" is already pretty outdated and needs to be replaced. At the same time, claims appeared against the Russian military department, consisting in rejection of the very idea of abandoning the station. Such a reaction is quite understandable: the missile attack warning system is too important an element of the country's defense to be so economical, the profit in the form of 14-15 million US dollars a year is not worth the strategic losses. It should be admitted that there are still some losses from the decommissioning of the Gabala radar station. But, fortunately for the defense capability of Russia, these losses will not be too great so as not to abandon the station on the territory of Azerbaijan.
During the years while our military used stations on the lands of independent states, domestic scientists and engineers from the V. I. Academician A. L. Mints and the Research Institute of Long-Range Radio Communication have created several new projects of over-the-horizon radars of the Voronezh family, which are already replacing Soviet-built complexes. The main feature of the Voronezh radar stations is their high degree of factory readiness. This means that the construction and adjustment of the station takes much less time than the construction of the radar of previous projects. Currently, there are three modifications of such stations: Voronezh-M, operating in the meter range, Voronezh-DM, using decimeter waves, and the promising high-potential Voronezh-VP. Radar stations of the Voronezh family have a viewing range of about 5, 5-6 thousand kilometers. At the same time, they consume significantly less electricity than the previous stations. So, the Gabala "Daryal" requires about 50 megawatts of energy, and "Voronezh" needs only 0.7-0.8 MW. With such a difference in power consumption, both stations have approximately equal viewing characteristics. It is also necessary to note the technological simplicity of the new stations. "Voronezh", depending on the modification, consists of 25-30 modules, and the total number of components and assemblies of "Daryala" exceeds four thousand. All this directly affects the cost of the finished station: the construction and installation of Voronezh costs no more than 1.5-2 billion rubles, which is an order of magnitude cheaper than the manufacture and installation of Daryal.
Since February 2009, the Voronezh-DM project station has been in trial operation near Armavir as a replacement for the Gabala radar station. Its field of view partially overlaps with the field of the radar station in Gabala, which makes it possible already now to abandon the station in Azerbaijan. The area of responsibility of the Armavir station includes North Africa, southern Europe, and the Middle East. At present, the radar station near Armavir is preparing for the final stage of testing and will soon be commissioned by the aerospace defense forces. Next year, the Armavir radar complex will receive one more station, which will significantly increase its field of view. Several years before the start of Voronezh-DM operation in the Krasnodar Territory, near the village of Lekhtusi (Leningrad Region), a station of the Voronezh-M project was built, monitoring the North Atlantic region, the northern seas, Scandinavia, the British Isles, etc.
At the end of November last year, another over-the-horizon radar of the Voronezh-DM project was put into operation, located near the town of Pionersky, Kaliningrad region. This station covers the areas of responsibility of the "Volga" radar near Baranovichi (Belarus) and "Dnepr" near the city of Mukachevo (Ukraine). Thus, one new early detection station will replace two old ones at once and cancel the need to rent facilities from neighboring states. Since May of this year, another "Voronezh-M", located near Usolye-Sibirskiy (Irkutsk region), has taken up experimental combat duty. This object differs from other stations of its project in a larger area of the antenna field and, as a consequence, in a large field of view. Thanks to the six-section antenna (the other Voronezhs have three sections), the radar station in the Irkutsk region can control the space from Alaska to India, partially covering the area of responsibility of the station that has not been operating for a long time near the city of Balkhash-9 (Kazakhstan).
In the coming years, the Ministry of Defense plans to build several more stations of the Voronezh project. One of them will be located near the city of Pechora (Komi Republic) and will replace the old station of the Daryal project, and the other will replace the Dniester in the Murmansk region. Also, the construction of Voronezh near Barnaul and Yeniseisk will begin soon. Thus, the new missile warning radar stations will close almost all dangerous directions. The stations laid down in 2013 can be built, tested and commissioned by 2017-18 at the most. Such short terms of work are due to the already mentioned simplicity and low cost of the design. Combined with growing funding to re-equip the Russian missile warning system, these advantages of Voronezh make it possible to quickly completely replace all old over-the-horizon radars, practically without losing in time, price or quality.
There remains only one question: what will happen to the stations remaining outside the border? The commissioning of new "Voronezh" facilities will allow, among other things, to stop using some of them as unnecessary, unnecessary, unnecessary complexity and additional costs in the form of rent. So Russia can simply abandon them and lose nothing. In addition, the new radars on their territory can be used as a kind of trump card in political games. Neighboring states - Ukraine, Belarus or Azerbaijan - while continuing to insist on an increase in the cost of renting their stations, may bargain to the point that Moscow will refuse both the payment and the stations themselves. Because of this, neighboring states, not wanting to lose a lot of money, may be forced to reduce the rent in order to preserve such an item of income.
As you can see, the whole situation with the domestic missile attack warning system went exactly in accordance with the postulates from textbooks on economics. In need of over-the-horizon radars, our country was unwilling or unable to invest in the development and construction of new ones on its territory. Because of this, we still had to pay, but to foreign now independent states for the right to lease existing facilities. Now Russia has the opportunity to invest in the future, and we will soon cease to depend on the lease of obsolete facilities, completely switching to the use of radar stations located on its own territory. And yet it is not very pleasant that, due to the events of past years, the complete relocation of the attack warning stations has not yet taken place and is still only expected.
