New Radar in S. Russia to Go on Combat Duty Early in 2013

MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti) – A new-generation Voronezh-DM class
anti-missile radar will enter combat duty near the town of Armavir in
Russia’s southern Krasnodar region in the beginning of 2013, Russian
President Vladimir Putin said on Friday.
`The radar will monitor the Russian airspace in the southern strategic
vector,’ Putin said at a Kremlin meeting with newly-appointed and
promoted high-ranking military officials.
The Armavir radar will replace the Gabala radar station, which Russia
had leased from Azerbaijan for 10 years.
The lease, signed in 2002, expired on December 24, and Russia’s
Foreign Ministry confirmed that the Russian army will not renew it.
The anti-missile radar near Armavir is one of the four new-generation
Voronezh-class radars that have been built in Russia in recent years.
Two Voronezh-M radars have been deployed in Lekhtusi near St.
Petersburg and near the town of Usolye-Sibirskoe in Siberia’s Irkutsk
Region.
Another Voronezh-DM class radar stationed in the westernmost exclave
of Kaliningrad was put on combat duty in November last year in what
then-President Dmitry Medvedev said was part of Russia’s response to
U.S. and NATO European missile defense shield plans.
Voronezh-DM class radars have a range of 6,000 kilometers. They can be
more quickly deployed to a new site and require a smaller crew to
operate it compared to previous generation stations.
Two sections of the Armavir radar that have been working in a testing
mode have allowed monitoring the area from France and Spain in the
west, to Algeria in the southwest, Sudan in the south, and Iran,
Afghanistan and parts of India and Pakistan in the southeast,
according to the Russian military.
The Defense Ministry has recently announced that Russia will start
building two new radars in east Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk Territory and in
the south Siberian Altai Republic in 2013 as part of its missile
defense network.