Ukraine Is Knocking Out Kremlin’s ‘Eyes’: How This Will Help In War

The defeat of over-the-horizon radars has several tangible advantages.

Over the course of several days, Ukrainian drones hit the Voronezh-DM and Voronezh-M over-the-horizon radar stations in the Krasnodar Territory and the Orenburg Region, respectively. These are not ordinary radars, but strategic objects of the Russian Federation, which are part of the so-called nuclear triad.

What benefit does Ukraine have from hitting these targets and what other radars can we hit? Ukrainian weapons expert Oleh Katkov explains this to “Apostrophe”.

Recently, two over-the-horizon radar stations of the Voronezh-DM type were destroyed in Armavir. And now we are also talking about the defeat of another Voronezh-M station, already in the meter range, near Orsk. It is important that this is not just a radar. This is a very significant loss, because they are single products. These stations take at least two years to build, and usually four. The stations are designed to detect ballistic missiles at ranges from 6 to 8 thousand kilometers. This is a component of the Russian nuclear strike system. This is a missile attack warning system.

These are the strategic eyes of the Russian Federation, which are now being actively knocked out by Ukraine. Again, this has never happened in history. No one has ever lost an over-the-horizon radar. This happened for the first time in history when such a category of targets was destroyed, which is directly included in the Russian nuclear triad.

Another important aspect is which direction these radars were facing. They did not look towards Ukraine. In Armavir, one of the radars looked towards the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. That is, its task was to detect launches of ballistic missiles from submarines located directly in the Mediterranean Sea. Perhaps the radar there looked a little at Crimea, with some kind of lateral “vision”. That is, this station could not possibly look at Ukraine, and its task was to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The second station, which was in Armavir, looked directly at the Persian Gulf and India, including the Indian Ocean, and a little at China.

And the Voronezh-M station in Orsk looked exclusively at China and was deployed in the opposite direction from Ukraine.

That is, now Ukraine is knocking out the strategic eyes of the Kremlin. Thus, the Kremlin has huge gaps in its missile attack warning system. And this is Moscow’s uncertainty. After all, if there is no information and means to understand that missiles are flying, this is a factor of uncertainty.

Secondly, the cost of such radars is enormous. Such a station does not cost 100 million dollars, as some Russian public pages wrote. Although the exact cost is unknown, the Russians forgot to add at least one zero. And in order to update this station, you need to invest significant funds and resources, which will be spent on repairing these radars, and not on the production, for example, of tanks. After all, war, in any case, is a matter of resource distribution. And if the enemy spends resources on other tasks, then that’s great.

Thirdly, we can already talk about the systematic nature of such attacks. And there are also such radars in the affected area of Ukraine. And now the enemy will try to cover them. To this end, it must distribute its air defense assets. And given that the enemy already has a lack of air defense, he must take some systems on the front line and put them where other radars are located.

For understanding, another station “Voronezh-DM” is located at a distance of 450 kilometers from Ukraine. The only problem is that it is located in Kaliningrad. That is, you need to fly over Poland and then... The second in range is behind St. Petersburg. There is another Voronezh-M there. And he is in the affected area, if you count in a straight line.