In Russia, the state tests of the updated missile attack warning system (EWS), the main task of which is to detect ballistic missiles and transmit operational information to the command, have been completed.

Sergei Boev, general designer of the early warning system and general director of the Vympel IAC, spoke about this on the air of the Military Acceptance program on the Zvezda TV channel.

“We had - and today we have solved this task - on new technologies with high-performance computing means to ensure the processing of this information and its transmission to the highest command posts of the military-political leadership of the country.

This task has been solved today.

At the end of December 2020, we successfully completed state tests of the PRN system as a whole and the command post in particular, "Boev said.

Earlier, he told Interfax that the improved early warning system is expected to take up combat duty in 2021.

As the general director of Vympel explained, in the course of modernization, data transmission channels were improved, new locators and command posts were put into operation.

50 years on guard

On Monday, February 15, it will be 50 years since the beginning of the functioning of the domestic early warning system.

It was on this day in 1971 that a separate anti-missile surveillance division officially entered combat duty, which included the Main Missile Attack Warning Center in Solnechnogorsk and two first-generation Dnestr-M radar over-the-horizon stations.

According to Sergei Boev, the creation of an early warning missile system was an adequate response to the threats that arose after the emergence of the United States of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The system was gradually improved and expanded: radar stations of the projects "Dnepr", "Daryal", "Duga", "Volga" were on duty, warning complexes and satellite systems were connected.

However, with the collapse of the USSR, part of the existing PRN system remained outside Russia.

The stations in Latvia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan were gradually shut down.

In this situation, it was decided to abandon the construction of expensive stations of previous generations and move on to the construction of modular high-availability radar Voronezh, as well as create a new global space system for detecting launching ballistic missiles.

The first radar station of the Voronezh project took over on experimental combat duty in December 2006 in the Leningrad region.

Stations were gradually put into operation in the Krasnodar Territory, the Kaliningrad and Irkutsk Regions, the Krasnoyarsk and Altai Territories, as well as in the Orenburg Region.

The last three radars went into operation in December 2017, providing Russia with complete radar control of all missile-hazardous directions.

“For the first time both in the history of Russia and in the history of the USSR, we have created a continuous radar field for the country.

Moreover, it should be borne in mind that it was and is working today as a dual-band field, "Boev stressed.

Currently, work is underway to create the Voronezh radar station in the Komi Republic and the Murmansk Region, and it is planned to build a radar complex in Crimea.

  • Radar "Voronezh"

  • © macvympel.ru

Let us add that the Voronezh radar family consists of stations of the meter, decimeter and centimeter wavelengths.

Longer waves allow you to reach the maximum range, and shorter ones - to increase the accuracy of target detection, and their combined use makes it possible to increase the noise immunity of the continuous radar field of Russia.

"The main advantage of the Voronezh radar is the modularity of its construction, a modern element base, which makes it possible to respond in a timely manner to changes in the degree of threat, to build up combat capabilities, to assemble practically any configuration depending on the tasks set," the head of the radio engineering department said on the air of the Zvezda TV channel. center of the radar "Voronezh-M" of the main center of the PRN Yuri Rodivilov.

Space echelon

In turn, a military expert, retired colonel Viktor Litovkin, in an interview with RT, noted that the Russian early warning system consists of three main elements: the space and ground parts of the system, as well as the A-135 anti-missile defense complex of the Moscow Special Region, which includes a radar Don-2N.

In early January 2021, the Ministry of Defense reported that, as part of the improvement of the space echelon of the early warning system, a complete modernization of the control center of the space component of the system was carried out.

"The second stage of the deployment of the orbital grouping of the Unified Space System, which will become the basis of the space echelon of the early warning system and will significantly reduce the detection time of launches of ballistic missiles, as well as significantly increase the efficiency and reliability of information warning the military-political leadership of the country about missile threats," ...

  • Radar "Voronezh"

  • © macvympel.ru

In fact, the space part of the early warning system makes it possible to provide the maximum possible warning time for a missile launch, after which the combat crew decides on the reliability of the target, and a warning signal for the leadership is generated only after the launch is detected by ground stations.

“These stations work like this.

The space echelon detects a rocket launch anywhere: in the ocean, on land, in the United States, in the Indian Ocean, in the Pacific ... This torch, that is, the launch of a rocket, is recorded, transmitted to ground complexes, the ground complex detects this rocket and the inclination of the orbit, the slope of the flight path of this rocket determines where it flies, - Viktor Litovkin explained the scheme of the early warning system.

- When it is seen that this missile is flying towards our territory, this information is instantly transmitted to the Central Command Post to the country's leadership and a decision is made on a retaliatory strike or to intercept this missile.

The complex can have both. "

“This missile attack warning system has a range of 3,000 to 6,000 km.

So, having such data, we strengthen the defense capability of our state and, of course, the system of deterring a potential enemy, "the expert concluded.