RUSSIA LACKS AIR DEFENCE, FORMER CHIEF TELLS PAPER

Argumenty i Fakty, Moscow
8 Dec 04

Only 30 per cent of all Russia’s strategic sites are protected
from the air and the remainder – including nuclear power stations,
military control points, ballistic missile silos and Moscow – are
undefended, the former commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force,
Anatoliy Kornukov, has said in an interview with a Russian weekly. The
following is the text of report by Russian weekly Argumenty i Fakty
on 8 December; subheadings are as published:

Hardly anyone knows – even though this is not a military secret – that
an itinerant session of the State Duma defence committee took place
recently at the central command centre of the General Staff of the Air
Force in the village of Zarya of the Gorkovskaya Railway. Commander
-in-Chief of Russian Air Force Col-Gen Vladimir Mikhaylov addressed
the deputies. As the deputies are under a vow not to tell the press
anything about it, the former Air Force commander-in-chief, Anatoliy
Kornukov, has outlined the current situation to us.

Threat of terrorist acts

Only 30 per cent of the entire list of strategic facilities of the
Russian Federation approved by the president are protected from the
air. The remainder is undefended. These include nuclear power stations,
military control points, ballistic missile silos… (ellipsis as
published). Moscow protection is weak, too – and we are talking about
a city with millions of residents, with over 20 major facilities which
are dangerous because of radioactivity and chemical aspects. There are
many airfields around the capital. If terrorists kidnap an aircraft,
they will have no problems with choosing their target!

At present, when the threat of terrorist acts cannot be disregarded,
our defence can hit only 20 out of 100 targets if they begin to near
Moscow. Before 1991, maximum only about 10 out of 3000 attacking
aircraft could have made it through the defences of the air space of
the GDR, Poland and Belarus.

Interceptors were waiting for the enemy on the border, then air
defence troops were controlling the skies, for instance, in Leningrad
or Moscow regions. After that the zone of direct defence of Moscow
and Central region was in charge, in which four echelons of defence
were envisaged. S-300 air defence systems were ready at 250 km, then
at 100 km and finally 50 km distances. For the worst case scenario,
two air defence regiments were to be deployed in the centre of Moscow.

Foreigners will help us

It is obvious that 61,000-km-long state border of Russia cannot be
covered for the entire length. But to leave almost 80 per cent of
the border open?

Say, significant border sectors with Kazakhstan and Mongolia are
not monitored by radars. At present there is nothing in the Kurils,
Magadan, and Chukotka is fully exposed, too.

At least it is good that we are still going strong in the west. Many
thanks to Belarus. It has a highly trained air defence system and
its pilots are trained better than any other pilots anywhere else in
the CIS.

We must say that there is such a body as the CIS Air Defence. Out of
all the countries which are its members, apart from Belarus, only
Armenia and Kazakhstan can render real help to Russia. At least,
if there emerges a threat from Turkey, Armenia will honestly defend us.

There has been an open bleeding of the air defence system since 1991 –
I have no other words to describe this process. In the North, where we
could not withdraw our air defence battalions, including the famous
S-300, we simply welded the vehicle doors and modules hoping that
no-one will be able to break in.

We managed to evacuate quite a bit in 1998-1999, but some other things
were just left there to rot.

The 10th Army which was defending the north has virtually ceased
to exist. But the North is actually the shortest way to all vitally
important facilities in our country.

All these negative processes have taken their toll on supplying
new technology to troops. When I was still holding the post of
Commander -in-Chief of Russian Air Force, I assumed we would receive
the new Triumph complex (S-400) as early as 1999. Test results were
wonderful. A S-400 battalion could replace two regiments!

In perspective, after upgrading, the Triumph could have been used
on targets in the outer space to up to 200 km. This complex is much
cheaper than the US ballistic missile defence system.

The president has signed a document in accordance with which S-400 was
to become the common air defence missile system for the country’s
air defence in order not to waste the meagre resources of the
Defence Ministry. But the president’s decrees and the government’s
resolution are being ignored. So far, only one experimental sample
has been produced. This seems to be our usual practice – “a peasant
needs thunder to cross himself and wonder”… (Russian catch phrase;
ellipsis as published)