Unconfirmed news reports claim the Russian Navy is deploying land-based ‘Bastion’ anti-ship missile systems as a response to the recent U.S. move entering two naval vessels to the Black Sea. The Bastion anti-ship missile system was deployed last night (8-9 March) to Sevastopol from the Russian town of Anapa, Krasnodar, about 250 miles to the East. (Read more)
The third battery of air defense missile systems Tor-M2 was put into service today by the 120th air defense missile brigade of the Western Operative and Tactical Command of the Air Defense and Air Force of Belarus. The keys to the new systems were presented by Major-General Igor Golub, Deputy Chief of the Air Force and Air Defense of Belarus. He underlined: “With the acquisition of the third battery we have formed a full-fledged air defense missile division, which wields the latest armaments”.
One Tor-M2 battery comprises four vehicles. Thus, the Belarusian army has received 12 Tor-M2 vehicles so far. The vehicles were made in Russia using Belarusian chassis (MZKT). The chassis has earned a good reputation: “We have already tested it in sands of Ashuluk. We have no complaints about the Belarusian chassis,” noted Igor Golub. He also explained that one combat system can fire at four airborne targets simultaneously.
Belarus expects four S-300 air defense missile systems to be shipped from Russia, Maj. Gen. Igor Golub, a deputy commander of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Forces, told journalists on Saturday 4th January.
Belarus has already received Tor-M2 systems from Russia as part of military-technological cooperation policy between the two countries and has concluded a contract for 4 Yakovlev Yak-130 aircraft. "Cooperation is continuing, and it is productive," Golub said.
The Syrian government’s shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and launchers could imperil civil aviation if they fall into the hands of terror groups, according to an independent report examining the global proliferation of portable missiles.
Citing video and photo evidence from opposition forces, media and official accounts, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) study says some portable launchers and missiles have been seized by opposition forces during battles with Syrian troops, while others have been smuggled in to rebel fighters from neighboring countries.
The 88-page report warns about man-portable air-defense systems, also known as MANPADS, in the arsenal of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government. U.S. officials have estimated the Syrian government has as many as 20,000 MANPADS, compact missile launchers with the range and explosive power to attack low-flying planes and helicopters. Syria’s anti-aircraft missile inventory is comparable in size to that amassed by Libyan forces before the 2011 ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.
The FAS study cites the widespread looting of anti-aircraft weapons that occurred after Gadhafi’s fall and the mass ransacking of Iraqi weapons depots after the U.S. invasion in 2003 as evidence that Syria’s missiles are equally vulnerable. Portable anti-aircraft missiles have most often been used by non-government forces in conflict zones such as Iraq, where U.S. aircraft were targeted and sometimes struck by militants. Civilian passenger flights have never been threatened by shoulder-fired missiles in the U.S., but there have been nearly a dozen lethal strikes over the past decade in Asia and Africa.
The FAS report said the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia used an SA-18 missile to shoot down a Belarusian cargo aircraft departing from Mogadishu in 2007. Many of the portable launchers displayed by Syrian rebel groups on the Internet appear to be decades-old models such as Russian-made SA-7s — similar to ones found in Libya after Gadhafi’s ouster. Unlike Libya, Syria’s military has a larger supply of newer and longer-range models supplied from Russia, and as a result, Syrian rebels also appear to have seized some new-model Russian missile launchers.
The Voronezh-DM early warning radar in Kaliningrad is set to be put on combat duty in late 2014.
The station itself monitors North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea as far as the Atlantic Ocean, which includes the areas patrolled by American, Ohio-class submarines with strategic missiles.
It covers a radius of 3,728 miles over the Earth’s surface and 4,970 miles into space.
Russia has similar stations in Armavir (to be put on combat duty in June of this year), Lehtusi near St. Petersburg (already operational) and in Siberia, near Irkutsk (the first radar is operational, while the second is still under construction). There are also early warning radar systems in the Kola Peninsula (Dnestr-M and Daryal radars), the Komi Republic (Daryal radar), Belarus (Volga radar) and Kazakhstan (Dnepr and Dnestr radars). (Read more)
