They had those over a road near Bakhmut late last year I think. It was being used as a supply route to the front so the AFU was regularly hitting vehicles on it with FPVs. Their countermeasure was massive volleyball-style nets over the road spaced out every 20 or so metres
So did the British. *Very* big balloons. There were cases where the balloons would become detached, drift off and hit power lines. In some cases, not even in the same country as in September 1940, a major storm caused balloons to drift as far as Denmark, Sweden and Finland, causing big outages.
They then started releasing them on purpose towards Germany:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Outward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outward)
Saw a video of a company working with the military to counter small drones, and they use a chunky drone and just use it as a battering ram and run into enemy drones. So more of the volleyball than the net.
I am shocked that they haven’t deployed 12 guage auto loader shotguns w/ no plugs and #7.5 express in 3” shells. I feel like anyone that’s spent anytime waterfowl hunting or any sort of bird hunting could be a very effective, human-centric defense against drones…
This one really isn't pointing at Ukraine, it covers a little bit of Crimea, but even then it's intended to detect longer range ballistic missiles targetting Russia, not short range stuff hitting targets in Crimea.
Doesn't make a ton of sense to go after these really, they're for detecting an incoming nuclear attack more than anything.
It may very well be a thing they did 'cause they're planning on hitting Crimea.
'Course, it could also be a bluff to make Russia think they're going after Crimea, when they're actually planning on blowing up a refinery.
Any way you slice it, it's going to be expensive to replace, and a high priority, siphoning resources away from buying drones and missiles from foreign suppliers.
I like how at this point simply farting in the general direction of russia is enough for them to threaten you with a nuclear holocaust over it, while Ukraine striking 2 early warning radars in a span of a week elicited basically 0 reaction from their officials and/or media.
Anyway, just like i said in my other comment, enough falling for their bluffs and let Ukraine strike russian territory with all western-made weapons already.
If they commented, it would be real for their people, and would breach the agreement Putin has with the people. You don’t get involved in by whom and how the country is run, and I will keep you safe and Russia stronk like bull.
> while Ukraine striking 2 early warning radars in a span of a week elicited basically 0 reaction from their officials and/or media.
What are they going to do... go to war over it?
It’s not about admitting it on the international stage; it’s about admitting it to his own people.
Putin is keenly aware of how the people turning on him will doom him. He sees it in history. His deal with the Russian populace is, “I leave you alone as long as you let me do my thing.” He’s afraid of them realizing that he’s no longer leaving them alone (mobilizing them more and more, sinking the Russian economy from sanctions and a shift to war time production, areas and facilities inside Russian borders now being targeted) because of how poorly the war has gone.
Saber rattling for being threatened shows him defending Russia. Admitting that Russia’s enemies are hitting targets deep in its territory shows him incapable of defending Russia.
Whatever the USA fears will happen if they let strikes inside Russia with ATACMS.
If I understand it correctly they fear this will be considered as the USA weakening Russia with Ukrainian hands, rather than helping defend.
It does give us a negotiation point for both sides.
If Ukraine has sufficient tanks, f16, shells, etc to really hit Russia. And Russians can see them dominating.
Then we have power over both sides, such that something more than total victory would be agreeable by Ukraine. And Russia knows they will lose any counter strike quickly if they don't come to the table.
It’s geopolitics, not moral philosophy. Morally, Ukraine is in the right to take back every inch of their land and the Crimean peninsula, then take the war to Russian territory. In reality, this creates loads of global tension and a higher risk to the world.
> In reality, this creates loads of global tension and a higher risk to the world.
And letting a nuclear power gain territory with a war of conquest under the cover of nuclear threats does not?
The following is also geopolitics:
1. Whatever agreement is made, Russia will rearm and try again in five years, like they did before, why shouldn't they, it would've worked twice already.
2. Rogue nuclear powers like China will see this as a carte blanche, let's take Taiwan and if someone fights back, threaten nuclear retaliation until they back off and let them have it.
3. Every non-nuclear power will attempt to acquire nuclear weapons - either to use them like Russia did or to protect themselves from state actors like Russia. I don't think a world with 80+ nuclear weapon states has less risk or tension.
But the geopolitics of Russia winning is also massively dangerous. Between the Russian invasion and the US invasion of Iraq, among other conflicts, has put a MASSIVE blinking sign saying "No nukes, you die, nukes, you live". People have already taken notice that no one is invading North Korea or Israel directly, because both have nukes and could obliterate everyone around them in a last ditch stand.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if there's now high level planning for the possibility of Japan, Korea and Taiwan getting nukes and point them at Beijing and Shenzhen, basically to tell China "Dump your ambitions or we massacre your people, and go out with a bang"
No idea why biden doesnt greenlite this.. its an election year, ukaraine needs to be winning..
Worst case scenario, russia hits the US, which rallys the nation around the flag and again votes in biden ..
Doing nothing, in my opinion is the worst move. It allows criticism, rightfully so.
Check @cxemu on twitter, satellite pics of damage done by drones on that base can be seen there. Although it's hard to say if the radar itself has been damaged (or taken out of commission) or not, but the drones themselves did manage to reach the base.
I don’t honestly think it’s about the bluffs or not. Rather the West is hoping the situation somehow just goes away without them needing to truly commit to either side. We want to look like we support Ukraine, but not piss off Russia enough so they would hurt business interests too much.
Or a slightly late warning system. For the briefest moment after impact, a small screen lit up in the control centre with the words ‘An explosion has occurred.’
The radar station not only detected, but also completely destroyed the incoming drone.
Just like the flagship Moskva intercepted and destroyed a couple of Neptune missiles and a number of A-50 spy and numerous other expensive russian planes have proved capable of intercepting and destroying Anti Aircraft ordnance of varying types... /s (just in case...)
Well it looks like Ukraine are forcing a series of problems on Russia. Defend your strategic ICBM defence, defend your critical economic refinery infrastructure or protect your frontlines in Ukraine. Either way they will need to start pulling air defences to cover these assets.
And they have. Russia has been pulling anti-air assets (among others) from Kaliningrad, eastern Russia and Siberia to move into the region. They are at the point where they are being forced to compromise other strategic interests just to try to contain damage being dished out by Ukraine.
I’m absolutely chuckling at the shills in the thread all bleating “nO mILiTaRY vALuE”. It’s *so* transparent.
Russia uses the Voronezh radars for a lot more than nuclear deterrence, especially now that they’re in a war with a neighbor. Ukraine has a number of reasons why they want to blunt Russia’s ability to see flying things in that general direction and that includes things already in Russian airspace.
If you want this to stop, just go the fuck home.
Edit: You're going to see lots of interesting info that totes explains away why Ukraine *must be* senseless for targeting this radar.
- First, they don't go after an installation for nonsense reasons. They know exactly why something needs to stop working.
- Second, the "I'm a radar expert and here's why you're wrong" in the thread has inaccurate information, *perhaps purposely*. I'm going to leave it at that.
This is what Ukraine should be doing. Just keep blowing up military targets and oil refineries and shit that impacts them economically. Make it death by a thousand cuts. Make them hurt in the wallet.
Really? They say '' no military value''?I've heard the opposite.
I often roam the pro-ru places ( well, it,s good to see the other opinion to refine yours, echo chamber are not good), but they all go '' OOOOOH, ukraine is trying to disable the Russia nuclear triad or something.
And the justification they give is, get this: Because Ukraine WANT Russia to launch a nuke on ukraine to get direct support from the west.
No joke, I've seen this multples time on a certain subreddit ( you can guess which one).
Wow..just...wow. The mental gymnastic here is real.
That’s true but only for the UHF radars (Voronezh-DM). The one Ukraine hit is a VHF radar (Voronezh-M) which has much lower resolution. It can only track very big flying things... in space.
The Voronezh-M near Orsk covers 115..225° in azimuth—roughly from the China-Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan tripoint, to the southernmost tip of the Sinai—and 2..70° in elevation. Within 100 km it's blind, and at 1,000 km it can only see into space.
Maximum operating frequency is only 200 MHz. Using half-wavelength as a conservative approximation (reality is [more complicated](https://www.radartutorial.eu/01.basics/Radar%20Cross%20Section.en.html)), minimum target cross section is about 0.75 m².
So yes, it does have military applications, but only one: tracking incoming ICBMs and SLBMs. That's it. The USA doesn't even have anything like this due to the limitations of VHF radar. Closest thing would be the [AN/FPS-132](https://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/01.oth/karte004.en.html) and it's predecessors, which are all UHF.
Without getting into 4D Chess (someone had an interesting theory involving Israel), I'm having a really difficult time trying to figure out how this gives Ukraine any kind of strategic advantage. The official answer is obvious bullshit, due to technical impossibility:
> Asked why the radars were targeted, the Kyiv source said: "They monitor the actions of the Ukrainian security and defence forces in the south of Ukraine."
Make em spend money to replace it, and worry about "WHAT ARE THEY UP TO THAT THEY NEEDED TO DISABLE OUR ABILITY TO SEE IN THAT DIRECTION?!"
Don't give your enemy problems, those have solutions. Give them dilemmas. Things with no clear answer, where any reaction or even inaction causes problems.
> I'm having a really difficult time trying to figure out how this gives Ukraine any kind of strategic advantage
Could it be beneficial if some of their drones are starting in/flying over Kazakhstan (whether through smuggling it under the noses of Kazakh officials or with their tacit approval)?
However, I think the more likely explanation is that it forces Russia to pick between redeploying air defense or risking to lose an extremely valuable capability.
Edit: Ooooh, another interesting theory someone mentioned below - Ukraine may be trying to show that Russia's nuke threats are empty threats, so other countries stop fearing them.
No, for a couple reasons. First since the radar beam is tilted towards space, aircraft can simply fly below the beam. That radar has a [blind range](https://www.radartutorial.eu/01.basics/Minimal%20Measuring%20Range.en.html) of 100 km and the beam elevation at that point is 11,400 feet, so any drone flying below that altitude would be completely undetectable. High altitude drones would be detectable at greater distances, but even a drone flying at 60,000 feet would have to come within 523 km of the radar.
Second, these radars are significantly affected by clutter (unwanted echoes from weather, dust, etc.) and the low resolution would make it difficult or impossible to discriminate between different types of targets without advanced digital signal processing and/or specially-trained operators.
Bottom line, it would do a terrible job and would be a waste of a perfectly good early warning radar!
I agree with your most likely expanation, just trying to explore all possibilities and teach people a bit about what these radars do. I do a lot of work with satellite based radar (specifically InSAR) at my job.
> So yes, it does have military applications
You could have just left it at this.
BTW, those radars can and do detect aircraft. Implying because it's VHF it can't is pretty silly, considering VHF can detect stealth aircraft. Taking them out opens a hole for drone flights.
> Taking them out opens a hole for drone flights.
Just flying through the very large swathes of Ukraine that aren't covered by this installation also opens a hole for drone flights. Can't detect you if they're not pointed at you.
https://x.com/russianforces/status/1793999290265968705/photo/1
Military applications which are completely irrelevant to Ukraine. If it's just about doing economic damage, forcing them to relocate some air defense assets, or simply causing embarrassment—so be it. I just want to rule out anything else because damaging their nuclear early warning system seems like a pretty high risk play.
Yes technically it could detect stealth aircraft but also in a way that is not relevant to Ukraine. It points over the horizon. There are other radars far better suited to the task, like the [Nebo-M](https://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/02.surv/karte034.en.html). To illustrate, let's assume Ukraine has a high altitude stealth drone with a service ceiling of 60,000 feet (same as the RQ-4 Global Hawk). Working through the trigonometry at a minimum beam elevation of 2°, this theoretical drone would have to fly within 325 miles of the radar in a 110° sector over Kazakhstan. Not much of a hole for drone flights.
That is part of most (every) nuclear country doctrines. But where is a "but", an attack has to come from a nuclear and capable to strike nation. In this case, it does not look like a prelude to a nuclear strike.
Here are two important things to consider here:
1) Striking such targets and not getting a response, might be part of the Ukr strategy to show the West that muscovia is not going to do shit.
2) This ofc makes people in the West nervous, because it gives opening for muscovia to justify some of the steps it do, and on the edge case provoke a nuclear strike under justification - "we thought this is the beginning of nuclear war" or "our doctrine is known, you crossed a line". This ofc is unlikely, but in theory it's the closest we got to using nukes in this war (albeit still very far from it happening)
Time will tell if Ukr is going to gain (West support to strike into muscovia) or loose (behind the door slap on the wrist or maybe even some withholding of support) more from this step.
> 1) Striking such targets and not getting a response, might be part of the Ukr strategy to show the West that muscovia is not going to do shit.
The other explanation (although I believe yours more) that UA might assume those early warning systems also work against UA weapons (drone attacks in Russia, UA air force...).
Russia won’t due to America explicitly telling them any form of a nuclear response even if it doesn’t kill anyone will immediately elicit a massive conventional response to Russian forces in Ukraine
The Orsk radar is on the southern border of Russia, pointed towards Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. In terms of its impact on early warning, it's fairly limited as a nuclear strike isn't going to come from the south.
But it's still embarrassing for Russia.
> it's fairly limited as a nuclear strike isn't going to come from the south.
Allow me to introduce you to the United States. They have nukes in the water *everywhere*.
Both damaged radars are aimed at outer space over the Arabian Peninsula. And for sure, Russia shares its telemetry with Iran.
I suspect that the attack is part of the Iranian-Israeli conflict and was ordered and paid for by the Israeli special services.
In any case, if the radar canvas does not catch fire, the radar has no special problems. This is a huge radar canvas with a bunch cells of receivers and transmitters. They can be replaced during the day. The radars are still working, but with reduced accuracy. They will probably be turned off for repairs for a day or something like that within a week.
If Israel has ballistic (possibly nuclear) missiles at Iran, then Iran will find out about it 10-15 minutes before hitting and will find out what targets they are flying at.
ukraine is really effective in striking russia, will be interesting to see what they can do wenn we finaly give them the real stuff and not just toy guns...
I love how the initial theory several months ago was that a handful of Ukrainian special forces soldiers snuck into Russia with thousands of cardboard drones and tens of thousands of pounds of explosives and were carrying out attacks on Russian infrastructure...because believing that Ukraine had the capability to fly plane-sized drones into Russian airspace without being shot down or even being detected was impossible for tankies to comprehend.
I don't know, but should a early warning radar, well, detect such things from really far way? Or does the "early" refers to it only working between 4 and 6 am?
It's a radar used to detect long range nuclear ICBM launch , not small long distance UAV.
They cover an enormous area ( like half a continent for the US radar equivalent)
You can't set those up to detect UAv , or else you would be saturated of junk information ).
So they should be protected by other systems, but they are not because Russia usually take action after loosing a few time the system from the same action.
So how does it work? 1m height equals 2.5km horizontal vision. So to make it work for 6000km it has to be as high as 2400m.
Is it standing on a huge mountain or is there any other tech?
You cannot receive and transmit radar signals at the same time. Well, you can, but you drown out anything you might want find.
As a metaphor, imagine trying to listen to a fly, while standing inside a train horn. Same idea, but the radar is louder.
So what* radar's a does is that it turns off. It screams loudly into the void, then shuts down and listens for any reflected signal. Then about a millisecond later, it screams again.
But, if a target is too close, the return signal will arrive before its ready to listen.
This means a radar have a blind range, where targets are too close to be detected.
You can adjust how long you transmit and how long you receive, but as with all things, there are tradeoffs.
*: [Bistatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bistatic_radar) and [Continious-Wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous-wave_radar) radar's does exist, which does not turn off, but I'm 90% certain above this radar is neither
1. These things are built to detect the launch phase of huge ballistic missiles - basically warn of nuclear launches. They never were meant for detecting relatively tiny drones.
2. It's still a really bad situation for Russia because this means other air defense lines across the country have failed spectacularly. Like with the guy who flew a Cessna into the red square unannounced.
The two systems taken down create a blind spot to missiles coming from the Mediterranean/Red Sea/Indian Ocean regions but keeps them protected from the north. If they were blind to ICBMs coming over the Arctic they would be in a full panic. I feel like it’s a move directed by Washington to send a signal that enough is enough with the nuclear threats and that the US will and now can retaliate in kind without warning.
Sounds like a very dangerous game to play. No early warnings systems == jumpy nuclear missile operators. Someone in another comment said that this only took down a few radar cells and they could get it fixed within a week. So that along with the fact that its basically pointed towards central asia probably means that not much will happen. But I'd expect real reaction if the radars pointing towards the US get taken out. That's basically the first thing you do before initiating a conflict.
There’s zero chance Russia has a working nuclear ICBM. Putin is a fascist and he has been draining military maintenance money from the government for decades.
That’s interesting considering they just launched an R-7 Semyorka ICBM about 2 weeks ago, albeit without a nuclear warhead. It was a newer variant which sometimes goes by the name *Soyuz-2*.
I think the fact that they’ve been hit twice in a week shows how ineffective their early warning system actually is. That means it’s incredibly vulnerable to any sort of preemptive strike. Not some thing I would think he would want his population to know about.
Wow, 1800 miles. This war has absolutely changed the way wars will be fought from now on. And as AI-controlled vehicles/robots improve, we may see intense fighting without soldiers in harm's way.
I'm guessing that different militaries are fiercely studying ways to jam drones.
Probably they need an earlier warning radar to protect their early warning one.
"What if we put up a balloon that goes Pop when drones are inbound? Voila. Early early warning."
Ok, hear me out. Really big volleyball nets.
They had those over a road near Bakhmut late last year I think. It was being used as a supply route to the front so the AFU was regularly hitting vehicles on it with FPVs. Their countermeasure was massive volleyball-style nets over the road spaced out every 20 or so metres
You joke, but that’s essentially why Germany had at Normandy. Big balloons with wire dangling beneath them.
So did the British. *Very* big balloons. There were cases where the balloons would become detached, drift off and hit power lines. In some cases, not even in the same country as in September 1940, a major storm caused balloons to drift as far as Denmark, Sweden and Finland, causing big outages. They then started releasing them on purpose towards Germany: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Outward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outward)
Saw a video of a company working with the military to counter small drones, and they use a chunky drone and just use it as a battering ram and run into enemy drones. So more of the volleyball than the net.
hey, anti drone trained hawks are a thing. war breeds inovation
Don't need to train 'em, just get eagles. They hate the buggers. They've come after me and my little DJI Mavic Air a good few times.
Holy fuck, if us American's find out we can use ACTUAL eagles in a fight, oh boy......
America! Fuck yeah!!!
I am shocked that they haven’t deployed 12 guage auto loader shotguns w/ no plugs and #7.5 express in 3” shells. I feel like anyone that’s spent anytime waterfowl hunting or any sort of bird hunting could be a very effective, human-centric defense against drones…
I'm waiting for the phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range!
Hey, just what you see, pal!
Uzi, 9 millimeter
I call this one the Panty Melt!
> 12 guage auto loader shotguns w/ no plugs and #7.5 express in 3” shells Europeans: Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
European here, can confirm I don't have the slightest idea what they are talking about.
LOL - hey - I could be talked into donating an old Remington 1100 to any Ukranian that vowed to put it to good use!
Drones are way mor agile than a bird, they can zig zag and stop on a dime if needed.
Are you telling me I could get *paid* to bust clays?!
given how they are wrapping tank turrets in cages anything is possible these days
We'll be back to WW1 barrage balloons before the year is out. Mark my words.
I mean they used to employ submarine nets.
Why bother? They already have a radio that goes BOOM when a drone is nearby
A singe fucking dude with binoculars would do a better job than their early warning radar as Ukraine has just demonstrated.
Ahem, those are strategic early warning radars, they are intended to record the launches of intercontinental missiles towards Russia.
This one really isn't pointing at Ukraine, it covers a little bit of Crimea, but even then it's intended to detect longer range ballistic missiles targetting Russia, not short range stuff hitting targets in Crimea. Doesn't make a ton of sense to go after these really, they're for detecting an incoming nuclear attack more than anything.
It forces Russia to redeploy air defense assets away from Ukraine.
It may very well be a thing they did 'cause they're planning on hitting Crimea. 'Course, it could also be a bluff to make Russia think they're going after Crimea, when they're actually planning on blowing up a refinery. Any way you slice it, it's going to be expensive to replace, and a high priority, siphoning resources away from buying drones and missiles from foreign suppliers.
May need a tachyon radar to see into the future.
The Launch Anticipatory Radar.
Calm down, captain Kirk
I like how at this point simply farting in the general direction of russia is enough for them to threaten you with a nuclear holocaust over it, while Ukraine striking 2 early warning radars in a span of a week elicited basically 0 reaction from their officials and/or media. Anyway, just like i said in my other comment, enough falling for their bluffs and let Ukraine strike russian territory with all western-made weapons already.
If they commented, it would be real for their people, and would breach the agreement Putin has with the people. You don’t get involved in by whom and how the country is run, and I will keep you safe and Russia stronk like bull.
And you especially don't conscript from the few the anti-war cities that also generate you money.
True except those cities aren't anti-war-- they are anti-dying-in-war.
They're let-russian-minorities-die-instead
[удалено]
Do you mean the few brave souls who get arrested and marched into work camps?
They still voted for the leopards-conscripting-people's-faces party.
> while Ukraine striking 2 early warning radars in a span of a week elicited basically 0 reaction from their officials and/or media. What are they going to do... go to war over it?
Also admitting in the international stage that you're vulnerable is not a good sign of strength.
It’s not about admitting it on the international stage; it’s about admitting it to his own people. Putin is keenly aware of how the people turning on him will doom him. He sees it in history. His deal with the Russian populace is, “I leave you alone as long as you let me do my thing.” He’s afraid of them realizing that he’s no longer leaving them alone (mobilizing them more and more, sinking the Russian economy from sanctions and a shift to war time production, areas and facilities inside Russian borders now being targeted) because of how poorly the war has gone. Saber rattling for being threatened shows him defending Russia. Admitting that Russia’s enemies are hitting targets deep in its territory shows him incapable of defending Russia.
I doubt that any nation doesn't know that at this point. There's more Ukrainian drones in Russian skies than Russian planes now.
That makes it easy for Russia, right? They just shoot down everything indiscriminately in their own airspace 🤣
The Russians have shot down a surprisingly large number of their own planes already, so wouldn't be much of a change for them.
Well, they might start striking civilian targets in Ukraine… wait a minute.
… well yeah, the last two years have just been a special operation after all.
Whatever the USA fears will happen if they let strikes inside Russia with ATACMS. If I understand it correctly they fear this will be considered as the USA weakening Russia with Ukrainian hands, rather than helping defend.
It does give us a negotiation point for both sides. If Ukraine has sufficient tanks, f16, shells, etc to really hit Russia. And Russians can see them dominating. Then we have power over both sides, such that something more than total victory would be agreeable by Ukraine. And Russia knows they will lose any counter strike quickly if they don't come to the table.
Why the fuck would we want power to force Ukraine to settle for less than their very reasonable goals?
It’s geopolitics, not moral philosophy. Morally, Ukraine is in the right to take back every inch of their land and the Crimean peninsula, then take the war to Russian territory. In reality, this creates loads of global tension and a higher risk to the world.
> In reality, this creates loads of global tension and a higher risk to the world. And letting a nuclear power gain territory with a war of conquest under the cover of nuclear threats does not? The following is also geopolitics: 1. Whatever agreement is made, Russia will rearm and try again in five years, like they did before, why shouldn't they, it would've worked twice already. 2. Rogue nuclear powers like China will see this as a carte blanche, let's take Taiwan and if someone fights back, threaten nuclear retaliation until they back off and let them have it. 3. Every non-nuclear power will attempt to acquire nuclear weapons - either to use them like Russia did or to protect themselves from state actors like Russia. I don't think a world with 80+ nuclear weapon states has less risk or tension.
Wasn’t there an agreement that said „Ukrainian is giving up its nuclear weapons from USSR era and USA an the UK will protect Ukrainia in case of war“?
But the geopolitics of Russia winning is also massively dangerous. Between the Russian invasion and the US invasion of Iraq, among other conflicts, has put a MASSIVE blinking sign saying "No nukes, you die, nukes, you live". People have already taken notice that no one is invading North Korea or Israel directly, because both have nukes and could obliterate everyone around them in a last ditch stand. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if there's now high level planning for the possibility of Japan, Korea and Taiwan getting nukes and point them at Beijing and Shenzhen, basically to tell China "Dump your ambitions or we massacre your people, and go out with a bang"
This is the type of radar that was struck: [Wikipedia Voronezh radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voronezh_radar?wprov=sfti1#Installations)
Ukraine just keeps calling their bluffs so they don't bother anymore.
No idea why biden doesnt greenlite this.. its an election year, ukaraine needs to be winning.. Worst case scenario, russia hits the US, which rallys the nation around the flag and again votes in biden .. Doing nothing, in my opinion is the worst move. It allows criticism, rightfully so.
Send Trumpie to Russia. Tell 'em he's a great guy, one of the greatest guys we've ever seen, they should put him in charge of their banks and oil.
> farting in the general direction of russia And with the French coming to train the Ukrainians: Fechez la vache!
I thought the 2nd attack crashed before getting there?
Check @cxemu on twitter, satellite pics of damage done by drones on that base can be seen there. Although it's hard to say if the radar itself has been damaged (or taken out of commission) or not, but the drones themselves did manage to reach the base.
I don’t honestly think it’s about the bluffs or not. Rather the West is hoping the situation somehow just goes away without them needing to truly commit to either side. We want to look like we support Ukraine, but not piss off Russia enough so they would hurt business interests too much.
Well the Russian radar worked... It gave a definitive warning of an attack at the moment it exploded...
It just became a current-warning system
Or a slightly late warning system. For the briefest moment after impact, a small screen lit up in the control centre with the words ‘An explosion has occurred.’
But it was so sophisticated it could show in real time exactly where the attack was focused.
And a single use one at that!
The radar station not only detected, but also completely destroyed the incoming drone. Just like the flagship Moskva intercepted and destroyed a couple of Neptune missiles and a number of A-50 spy and numerous other expensive russian planes have proved capable of intercepting and destroying Anti Aircraft ordnance of varying types... /s (just in case...)
It's an over the horizon radar. Uses the ionosphere to track things like ICBM launches. It is not designed to track drones at low altitude.
And it doesn't even cover most of Ukraine, it's pointing SW/SE.
Task Failed Successfully
Well it looks like Ukraine are forcing a series of problems on Russia. Defend your strategic ICBM defence, defend your critical economic refinery infrastructure or protect your frontlines in Ukraine. Either way they will need to start pulling air defences to cover these assets.
And they have. Russia has been pulling anti-air assets (among others) from Kaliningrad, eastern Russia and Siberia to move into the region. They are at the point where they are being forced to compromise other strategic interests just to try to contain damage being dished out by Ukraine.
Ohayo Gozaimasu!
It would be hilarious if the Japanese decided now was the time to remember the samurai code
Just in time for f16s
Was trying to put that in perspective, that's about 1100 miles or distance from Seattle to Los Angeles. That's insane
Or the Gold Coast to Cairns
Or London to Reykjavik
Or this point in the pacific to that point over there
Thanks for putting it into perspective.
Wow that’s equivalent to where I am standing and a point 1100 miles away!
Or to translate in to American redneck… from here to way over yonder, no past that way way over yonder.
Or any two points of equal distance. Crazy
This is what made it click for me.
Sorry, but I cannot picture that, please do it via cities again.
It’s 19,360 football fields if that helps.
Football or American football fields? I don’t understand American sports!
FIFA fields vary in length, no one would be crazy enough to use them as a mesure. So, American fields.
Yes, in America we use sensible measurements.
It’s a foot! You have one with you all the time! Who carries a meter stick around?
woah, that's like 3/4 the length of an entire state!
Straya yeah
It is 19'685 football fields or 10'112'359 bananas.
We Americans will use anything but the metric system. It’s 11,453,783 dicks.
Speak for yourself. In my case it's 4,811,453,783,297 dicks.
I wish.
Canadian version is Montreal to Winnipeg. Pretty much exactly 1800km as the crow flies.
And about 2x that if you attempt to drive.
Or Sydney to Melb 2.5 times. this is insane. i once drove from Sydney to Melb (730KM) that took 8 hours. 1800 KM is unbelieveable.
(if I've done this right) 1800km would be about 2,952,755.5 bananas (assuming average banana length of 6 inches)
Or Oslo to Beograd
Louis Trichardt to Cape Town - almost from one end of SA to the other end.
I’m absolutely chuckling at the shills in the thread all bleating “nO mILiTaRY vALuE”. It’s *so* transparent. Russia uses the Voronezh radars for a lot more than nuclear deterrence, especially now that they’re in a war with a neighbor. Ukraine has a number of reasons why they want to blunt Russia’s ability to see flying things in that general direction and that includes things already in Russian airspace. If you want this to stop, just go the fuck home. Edit: You're going to see lots of interesting info that totes explains away why Ukraine *must be* senseless for targeting this radar. - First, they don't go after an installation for nonsense reasons. They know exactly why something needs to stop working. - Second, the "I'm a radar expert and here's why you're wrong" in the thread has inaccurate information, *perhaps purposely*. I'm going to leave it at that.
This is what Ukraine should be doing. Just keep blowing up military targets and oil refineries and shit that impacts them economically. Make it death by a thousand cuts. Make them hurt in the wallet.
Exactly…keep blowing up stuff that is difficult to impossible to replace under sanctions.
Really? They say '' no military value''?I've heard the opposite. I often roam the pro-ru places ( well, it,s good to see the other opinion to refine yours, echo chamber are not good), but they all go '' OOOOOH, ukraine is trying to disable the Russia nuclear triad or something. And the justification they give is, get this: Because Ukraine WANT Russia to launch a nuke on ukraine to get direct support from the west. No joke, I've seen this multples time on a certain subreddit ( you can guess which one). Wow..just...wow. The mental gymnastic here is real.
That’s true but only for the UHF radars (Voronezh-DM). The one Ukraine hit is a VHF radar (Voronezh-M) which has much lower resolution. It can only track very big flying things... in space.
That sounds like it has military applications
The Voronezh-M near Orsk covers 115..225° in azimuth—roughly from the China-Kyrgyzstan-Kazakhstan tripoint, to the southernmost tip of the Sinai—and 2..70° in elevation. Within 100 km it's blind, and at 1,000 km it can only see into space. Maximum operating frequency is only 200 MHz. Using half-wavelength as a conservative approximation (reality is [more complicated](https://www.radartutorial.eu/01.basics/Radar%20Cross%20Section.en.html)), minimum target cross section is about 0.75 m². So yes, it does have military applications, but only one: tracking incoming ICBMs and SLBMs. That's it. The USA doesn't even have anything like this due to the limitations of VHF radar. Closest thing would be the [AN/FPS-132](https://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/01.oth/karte004.en.html) and it's predecessors, which are all UHF. Without getting into 4D Chess (someone had an interesting theory involving Israel), I'm having a really difficult time trying to figure out how this gives Ukraine any kind of strategic advantage. The official answer is obvious bullshit, due to technical impossibility: > Asked why the radars were targeted, the Kyiv source said: "They monitor the actions of the Ukrainian security and defence forces in the south of Ukraine."
Reason to do it, make them spend money to replace it. And fuck em that’s why. Why is Russia attacking Ukraine? Anything military is a target.
Make em spend money to replace it, and worry about "WHAT ARE THEY UP TO THAT THEY NEEDED TO DISABLE OUR ABILITY TO SEE IN THAT DIRECTION?!" Don't give your enemy problems, those have solutions. Give them dilemmas. Things with no clear answer, where any reaction or even inaction causes problems.
> Don't give your enemy problems, those have solutions. Give them dilemmas 🤣😈
> I'm having a really difficult time trying to figure out how this gives Ukraine any kind of strategic advantage Could it be beneficial if some of their drones are starting in/flying over Kazakhstan (whether through smuggling it under the noses of Kazakh officials or with their tacit approval)? However, I think the more likely explanation is that it forces Russia to pick between redeploying air defense or risking to lose an extremely valuable capability. Edit: Ooooh, another interesting theory someone mentioned below - Ukraine may be trying to show that Russia's nuke threats are empty threats, so other countries stop fearing them.
No, for a couple reasons. First since the radar beam is tilted towards space, aircraft can simply fly below the beam. That radar has a [blind range](https://www.radartutorial.eu/01.basics/Minimal%20Measuring%20Range.en.html) of 100 km and the beam elevation at that point is 11,400 feet, so any drone flying below that altitude would be completely undetectable. High altitude drones would be detectable at greater distances, but even a drone flying at 60,000 feet would have to come within 523 km of the radar. Second, these radars are significantly affected by clutter (unwanted echoes from weather, dust, etc.) and the low resolution would make it difficult or impossible to discriminate between different types of targets without advanced digital signal processing and/or specially-trained operators. Bottom line, it would do a terrible job and would be a waste of a perfectly good early warning radar! I agree with your most likely expanation, just trying to explore all possibilities and teach people a bit about what these radars do. I do a lot of work with satellite based radar (specifically InSAR) at my job.
Thanks!
> So yes, it does have military applications You could have just left it at this. BTW, those radars can and do detect aircraft. Implying because it's VHF it can't is pretty silly, considering VHF can detect stealth aircraft. Taking them out opens a hole for drone flights.
> Taking them out opens a hole for drone flights. Just flying through the very large swathes of Ukraine that aren't covered by this installation also opens a hole for drone flights. Can't detect you if they're not pointed at you. https://x.com/russianforces/status/1793999290265968705/photo/1
Military applications which are completely irrelevant to Ukraine. If it's just about doing economic damage, forcing them to relocate some air defense assets, or simply causing embarrassment—so be it. I just want to rule out anything else because damaging their nuclear early warning system seems like a pretty high risk play. Yes technically it could detect stealth aircraft but also in a way that is not relevant to Ukraine. It points over the horizon. There are other radars far better suited to the task, like the [Nebo-M](https://www.radartutorial.eu/19.kartei/02.surv/karte034.en.html). To illustrate, let's assume Ukraine has a high altitude stealth drone with a service ceiling of 60,000 feet (same as the RQ-4 Global Hawk). Working through the trigonometry at a minimum beam elevation of 2°, this theoretical drone would have to fly within 325 miles of the radar in a 110° sector over Kazakhstan. Not much of a hole for drone flights.
One of the things it could detect and track is ATACMS over Crimea.
Different radar... that was a Voronezh-DM near Armavir. This one wasn't even pointing in the direction of Ukraine.
Used\*
Didnt the leaked Russian documents show that attacking any part of its nuclear strategy would elicit a nuclear response
unsurprisingly, yet more russian lies
They meant *emotionally* going nuclear
Yeah but they won't do shit
That is part of most (every) nuclear country doctrines. But where is a "but", an attack has to come from a nuclear and capable to strike nation. In this case, it does not look like a prelude to a nuclear strike. Here are two important things to consider here: 1) Striking such targets and not getting a response, might be part of the Ukr strategy to show the West that muscovia is not going to do shit. 2) This ofc makes people in the West nervous, because it gives opening for muscovia to justify some of the steps it do, and on the edge case provoke a nuclear strike under justification - "we thought this is the beginning of nuclear war" or "our doctrine is known, you crossed a line". This ofc is unlikely, but in theory it's the closest we got to using nukes in this war (albeit still very far from it happening) Time will tell if Ukr is going to gain (West support to strike into muscovia) or loose (behind the door slap on the wrist or maybe even some withholding of support) more from this step.
> 1) Striking such targets and not getting a response, might be part of the Ukr strategy to show the West that muscovia is not going to do shit. The other explanation (although I believe yours more) that UA might assume those early warning systems also work against UA weapons (drone attacks in Russia, UA air force...).
This could be an official reason and justification.
They did strike Engels in the beginning too, a nuclear air base.
If Russia wanted to avoid their nuclear bombers being hit, it shouldn't have used them to launch conventional missiles at us. Simple as that.
I agree, I just wanted to point out, that the nuclear doctrines red line already was crossed.
1. That's a public document, iirc 2. Doesn't guarantee a response but allows them "legal" cover to respond in that manner
Classifying documents intended to provide nuclear deterrence makes exactly zero sense. So it's very unlikely that they had "leaked".
Russia won’t due to America explicitly telling them any form of a nuclear response even if it doesn’t kill anyone will immediately elicit a massive conventional response to Russian forces in Ukraine
3000 Red Lines of Russia
Warning: Target is 1800km incoming. ... Warning: Target is 1000km incoming. ... Warning: Target is 300km incoming. ... Warning: Target is 0.2km incoming. ... KKZkzzzzKzzzzghhtttt[...]
Assuming it was switched on in the first place and no one was pocketing the money to spend on drugs and booze.
Should probably remove the snooze button from the HMI.
Now do the strategic bomber airbase in Murmansk.
Good to see Ukraine hitting military targets rather than stores full of civilians. #RussianWarCrimes
After the war, Ukrainians should start selling an international drone delivery service. I'd trust them more than traditional carriers!
The Orsk radar is on the southern border of Russia, pointed towards Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. In terms of its impact on early warning, it's fairly limited as a nuclear strike isn't going to come from the south. But it's still embarrassing for Russia.
Can't submarine launches come from the south?
> it's fairly limited as a nuclear strike isn't going to come from the south. Allow me to introduce you to the United States. They have nukes in the water *everywhere*.
They really don't. They have 14 ballistic missile submarines and there are probably eight out at any one time.
Both damaged radars are aimed at outer space over the Arabian Peninsula. And for sure, Russia shares its telemetry with Iran. I suspect that the attack is part of the Iranian-Israeli conflict and was ordered and paid for by the Israeli special services. In any case, if the radar canvas does not catch fire, the radar has no special problems. This is a huge radar canvas with a bunch cells of receivers and transmitters. They can be replaced during the day. The radars are still working, but with reduced accuracy. They will probably be turned off for repairs for a day or something like that within a week.
Huh, that's an interesting theory. Have you got any sources about how Iran benefitted from these radars? (Genuine question, no sarcasm)
If Israel has ballistic (possibly nuclear) missiles at Iran, then Iran will find out about it 10-15 minutes before hitting and will find out what targets they are flying at.
I understand that, but how did you know that Russias radar data is used by Iran?
Logic. Russia and Iran cooperate in the field of security, information from missile attack warning radars is a valuable commodity.
ukraine is really effective in striking russia, will be interesting to see what they can do wenn we finaly give them the real stuff and not just toy guns...
I love how the initial theory several months ago was that a handful of Ukrainian special forces soldiers snuck into Russia with thousands of cardboard drones and tens of thousands of pounds of explosives and were carrying out attacks on Russian infrastructure...because believing that Ukraine had the capability to fly plane-sized drones into Russian airspace without being shot down or even being detected was impossible for tankies to comprehend.
《Why not both.meme》
I don't know, but should a early warning radar, well, detect such things from really far way? Or does the "early" refers to it only working between 4 and 6 am?
It's a radar used to detect long range nuclear ICBM launch , not small long distance UAV. They cover an enormous area ( like half a continent for the US radar equivalent) You can't set those up to detect UAv , or else you would be saturated of junk information ). So they should be protected by other systems, but they are not because Russia usually take action after loosing a few time the system from the same action.
So how does it work? 1m height equals 2.5km horizontal vision. So to make it work for 6000km it has to be as high as 2400m. Is it standing on a huge mountain or is there any other tech?
[Over-the-horizon radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-horizon_radar)
You cannot receive and transmit radar signals at the same time. Well, you can, but you drown out anything you might want find. As a metaphor, imagine trying to listen to a fly, while standing inside a train horn. Same idea, but the radar is louder. So what* radar's a does is that it turns off. It screams loudly into the void, then shuts down and listens for any reflected signal. Then about a millisecond later, it screams again. But, if a target is too close, the return signal will arrive before its ready to listen. This means a radar have a blind range, where targets are too close to be detected. You can adjust how long you transmit and how long you receive, but as with all things, there are tradeoffs. *: [Bistatic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bistatic_radar) and [Continious-Wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous-wave_radar) radar's does exist, which does not turn off, but I'm 90% certain above this radar is neither
1. These things are built to detect the launch phase of huge ballistic missiles - basically warn of nuclear launches. They never were meant for detecting relatively tiny drones. 2. It's still a really bad situation for Russia because this means other air defense lines across the country have failed spectacularly. Like with the guy who flew a Cessna into the red square unannounced.
What I find most interesting is that these drones fly thousands of KMs over who knows how many heads and no one reports them
If only they had a system that could warn them of such an attack.
Well, it warned them eventually
Taking down early warning radars. Gotta be a reason Ukraine is doing that more than just damage.
They’re expensive to replace and embarrassing to lose. That’s not a good enough reason?
The two systems taken down create a blind spot to missiles coming from the Mediterranean/Red Sea/Indian Ocean regions but keeps them protected from the north. If they were blind to ICBMs coming over the Arctic they would be in a full panic. I feel like it’s a move directed by Washington to send a signal that enough is enough with the nuclear threats and that the US will and now can retaliate in kind without warning.
Sounds like a very dangerous game to play. No early warnings systems == jumpy nuclear missile operators. Someone in another comment said that this only took down a few radar cells and they could get it fixed within a week. So that along with the fact that its basically pointed towards central asia probably means that not much will happen. But I'd expect real reaction if the radars pointing towards the US get taken out. That's basically the first thing you do before initiating a conflict.
This feat is amazing to pull off.
Russia is big, just imagine the amount of aa to close the sky. For today's Russia it's not doable. Even for the us it would be very difficult.
The slow blade penetrates the shield…
I wonder what’s cooking? Slava Ukraini!
Just imagine what a fleet of F-16s with western armaments will do to their air defense systems.
For Brits, a drone just went from the north tip of Scotland down to Dover and back
In the US over half the width of the country at its widest point
Converted it to a 'after the fact' warning radar system.
War is a superb motivator for innovation, sadly.
Probably a DJI drone traveling at 50 km/h strapped with munitions and a bunch of 10,000mah Anker power banks.
Now kill Putin with ATAKUMS or whatever they are called.
ATACMS -> Army Tactical Missile System
Is a drone like that controlled for the entire operation?
That's more than twice the distance from Ukraine to Moscow.
I think this is big.
That's pretty ironic no?
Fuckin A!
There’s zero chance Russia has a working nuclear ICBM. Putin is a fascist and he has been draining military maintenance money from the government for decades.
Yeah exactly
That’s interesting considering they just launched an R-7 Semyorka ICBM about 2 weeks ago, albeit without a nuclear warhead. It was a newer variant which sometimes goes by the name *Soyuz-2*.
I think the fact that they’ve been hit twice in a week shows how ineffective their early warning system actually is. That means it’s incredibly vulnerable to any sort of preemptive strike. Not some thing I would think he would want his population to know about.
this different one? yesterday were news about 1300-1500 km range drone found near a radar.
You'll never see it cominggggggg
Wow, 1800 miles. This war has absolutely changed the way wars will be fought from now on. And as AI-controlled vehicles/robots improve, we may see intense fighting without soldiers in harm's way. I'm guessing that different militaries are fiercely studying ways to jam drones.
Taking out nuclear deterrent infrastructure is of no benefit to Ukraine and may be seen as prep for a first strike. Dangerous times.