Baranovichi [Gantsevichi] Russian Early Warning Radar

 military, radar station, cosmic forces, early warning radar

www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/baranovichi.htm

Baranovichi [Gantsevichi]

The Pechora-type large phased array radar (LPAR) at Baranovichi in Belarus commenced construction in 1985. According to some news reports (NY Post 5 Dec 86), the facility was one of three radars of this type the construction of which was initially detected by Western intelligence in 1986. The facility remained incomplete at the end of the Cold War. The radar was intended to detect ballistic missiles launched from western Europe, the north and central Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and to conduct space surveillance.

The first experimental Volga radar was initially planned to be built near Biysk, in Altai Territory. However in 1983 the US began deployment of the Pershing missiles in Germany. A search was undertaken for a more militarily useful location in the Grodno-Brest-Pinsk-Minsk quadrangle. In 1983 the Gantsevichi settlement was chosen, located approximately 50 km to the south-east of Baranovichi. A railway station, highway, water sources, and electric supply were located nearby. Additional Volga radar stations were planned for deployment near Sevastopol and Komsomolsk-na-Amure.

As with the Daryal radar, the Volga radar consists of separate receiver and transmiter antennae. In contrast to the Dnepr [HEN HOUSE], which operates in the meter bandwidth, the Volga radar operates in the decimeter bandwidth, as does the Daryal radar. This greatly improves the accuracy of tracking, and reduces the dimensions of the radar, and thus the time and cost of constructing the stations. The Volga radar was a digital high-power radar with a very broad bandwidth, several times broader than that of the American PAVE PAWS. This improved the resistance to jamming in wartime, and made for improved electromagnetic compatibility in peacetime.

Construction of the station started near Gantsevichi in the mid-1980's, with completion planned for 1989, but the deadline was subsequently delayed. Some of the equipment was installed at the station, and in December 1994 it began transmission for the first time. The station was only partially operational, and not outfitted up to the standard design. Even in this incomplete configuration, the radar was able to track targets at ranges up to 4,800 km.

Under the Russian-Belorussian intergovenmental agreement that was concluded on 06 January 1995 and signed in Minsk by Russian Federation Deputy Prime Minister Aleksei Bolshakov and Belorussian Prime Minister Mikhail Chigir, the station, which is designated in documents as the Baranovichi installation, was to be turned over to the ownership of Russia for a 25-year period and exempted from all types of taxes. The document was signed over the objections of Belarsian Foreign Minister Vladimir Senko, who sought economic concessions and a preferential price for Russian oil and gas for Belarus.

In 1997, the Volga station, along with other Missile-Space Defense Force assets, was moved from the Air Defense Forces to the Strategic Missile Forces. The Russian Defense Ministry and Strategic Missile Forces have decided to make the station operational, with the support of the Belarussian government.

In August 1999 it was announced that Russia would refurbish this radar and put it back in service in 2000 a key component of joint Belarusian-Russian defenses against a missile attack. This would fill the perhaps 85% of the hole in Russia's early warning network created by the loss of Skrunda, which was being filled in the interimr by Russian ABM facilities in Sofrino and Chekhov outside Moscow.

To complete the construction the radar station would require a substantial expenditure. Therefore, in the initial phase, the station was to be commissioned in a "cut-down" variant. An unexpected problem for the station's developer, the Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Long-Range Radar Communications (NIIDAR) was created by one of the subcontractors. The Dnepropetrovsk Machine-Building Plant refused for a while to fulfil the contract, demanding that the price paid be increased four-fold.

In December 1999, Moscow ratified a treaty to form a loose union with Minsk. The two countries agreed in the spring of 2000 to upgrade the Baranovichi radar and make it operational. The rebirth of Volga began when it became part of the Strategic Missile Troops. Funds were obtained, previous debts to designers and builders paid off, and the remaining equipment ordered. Assembly of equipment began again in the structures for the radar's transmitting and receiving systems. Tests of the Volga radar of the missile attack warning system started in September 2000.

The so-called "Volga" radar station is expected to enhance Russia's defensive capabilities that were significantly reduced after Moscow scrapped a similar facility at Skrunda in late 1998. The new radar system is designed to monitor Russia's western borders and detect missiles launched from Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. Although it was initially announced that the radar would become operational by the end of 2000, tests continued in fall 2001, when it was anticipated that the station would be put into operation by the end of the year.

The radar site is located a few dozen kilometers from the old border fortifications belt. Along the highway which runs along the old Soviet-Polish border is a reinforced defence site of pre-war construction. At the center of the site there is a 10-m high command tower with an armored top for observation. Around it are smaller reinforced concrete fortifications mounted at lower levels.