It is official now - the Duma terminated the agreement with Ukraine that allowed Russia to get data from the Ukrainian radars in Mukachevo and Sevastopol. The move was formally initiated in July 2007. The Ukrainian radars are supposed to be replaced by the new radar in Armavir (although it is not yet ready).
The Space Forces, which operate the early-warning system, are planning to expand the network of early-warning radars - at least two radars of the Voronezh-DM type, now deployed in Lekhtusi and Armavir, are expected to be deployed in the Far East and the Urals. The space-based EKS system is also expected to be part of the prospective early-warning system.
UPDATE 02/12/08: President Putin signed the law on February 12, 2008.
The book
Comments
Respect to the prospective EW radars: 1) Far East is a logical location to look deep on the Pacific. Even during the Soviet times, no radar was deployed to monitor this sector. 2) Urals. I can only assume it will replace the site in Gabala because the Kazakh site is looking to China and the South-East. Urals is not a good location to monitor this sector. 3) Ergo Armavir will replace the two radars in Ukrainia and therefore should be looking south-west (are Google-Earth images of the site in Armavir?).
This decision does make the point that no country can rely on a third-party-host for radar locations or signal processing. When your national security is at stake, no third-party influence can really ever be ultimately trusted.
Frank Shuler
USA
Pavel,
Does this mean that for a while, there will be a radar gap on the Ukranian side?
Yes, this means there will be a gap there.
Confirmed. Armavir will replace Sevastopol and Mukachevo, but also Gabala (!!) It will have two faces or a bigger fan?
It must be said also that the end of information flow will be produced in 12 months. So, there is no a gap there. At least theoretically.
Gabala will probably stay for a while.
When is the Russian lease on Gabala set to expire?
Frank Shuler
USA
The problem with Gabala is that it is a fairly old radar - it became operational in 1985. The current Russia-Azerbaijan was signed in 2002 - at the time it was reported that the lease was set to expire in 2010.
On the issue
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080204/98338722.html
PD: How can the new radar, with a much smaller power*area potential “see” farther than the old LPAR? I can only imagine a lone answer: Much bigger sensitivity. But this in turn leads to another problem,… more clutter. This may be solved via higher computational power and much more filtering. Anyway, I have some doubt about such an awesome range (6000 km!!!)
This article
http://www.yuga.ru/news/112772/
says the radar has the range of 4,200km with possible upgrade to 6,000km. Do you know what exactly such upgrade implies? Because I do not.
I don't think these numbers make much sense. Radar range depends, among other things, on cross-section of the target, dwell time, etc.