Russia will modernize Moscow’s missile defense by the end of 2023. The American edition of Defense News writes about this, referring to the words of the head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Sergei Shoigu, made during the last council of the department at the end of March.
The publication notes that the statement of the Russian official was made in the context of the second year of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Moreover, after the mentioned event in the Tula region, an operational-tactical Tu-141 “Strizh” UAV of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, stuffed with explosives, fell 175 km from Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry said the drone crashed after the Russian Armed Forces’ electronic interference system disabled its navigation.
During the board meeting, Shoigu also said that one of the priorities was to equip the troops with advanced air defense/missile defense systems. In 2023, the following elements will be formed in Russia: an air defense division and brigade, a special purpose air defense and missile defense brigade, an anti-aircraft regiment equipped with S-350 air defense systems. Since 2011, Russian authorities have spent 17.5% of 3.4 trillion rubles on aerospace defense development. ($44.3 billion) from the state arms program.
The program should lead to the deployment of 100 divisions, including 800 launchers, consisting of S-400, S-350 and S-500 missile systems. Under the latest version of the Russian state armaments program, also known as GPV -2027, funds will be directed to the production of S – 500. In the previous SAP – 2020, efforts have been deployed to create, manufacture and maintain military equipment
- says the publication.
The publication drew attention to the fact that, according to plans, by the end of 2027, the RF armed forces should receive 12 S-350 divisions instead of S-300. At the same time, 6 S-350 launchers are already equipped, but the 1st Order of Lenin’s Army of air and missile defense (1 A TEH – of air and missile defense), which only protects the Russian capital and the most important central industrial region of Russia, has not yet received this weapon.
As for the creation of the planned Special Purpose Air and Missile Defense Brigade, Russia will equip the 15th Aerospace Forces Special Forces Army (15 A VKS TEH -) with the latest S-500 Prometheus systems capable of resisting ballistic missiles. The C-500 has been developed since the early 2000s, and in 2016 Almaz-Antey opened two new factories for their production. The first S-500 complexes (the first brigade set) arrived in October 2021 at the 15th ACC TEH -.
In 2023, Russia will also put into combat service the spaceflight control station (R-band early warning radar, the main purpose of which is to catalog and work with space objects in high orbit) “Decoupling”, which is located in the Chekhov district of the Moscow region and should replace the old long-range radar actions “Danube – 3U”, supplementing the existing radar “Don – 2N”, which has been operating in the vicinity of Moscow since 1989 and has been improved in recent years.
As part of SAP-2027, they are expected to create the S-550 anti-missile and anti-space system by 2025 with improved detection capabilities and greater range compared to the S-400 and S-500. system, capable of hitting objects in orbit at an altitude of up to 700 km, replacing the Soviet A-135 (the 12th test launch of the A-235 took place in December 2022 at the site of Sary-Shagan test in Kazakhstan). In 2023, the mass delivery of Pantsir S-1 air defense missile systems to the troops should begin, and in total this year 507 units of new equipment will be delivered to the VKS, and about 85% of the existing VKS equipment will be modernized.
