Ukraine struck a brand new $250 million Russian artillery radar system proper after the navy touted its arrival

• Russia on Tuesday touted a counter-battery radar system that had simply deployed to the battlefield.

• Hours later, Ukrainian forces struck it with HIMARS rockets.

• Counter-battery radars have been important, permitting each armies to trace incoming artillery.

Ukrainian forces struck an costly, new Russian counter-battery radar system with rockets on the identical day navy officers introduced its deployment to the battlefield.

The Russian protection ministry and numerous state media shops introduced on Tuesday that Russian troops in Ukraine had received the 1K148 Yastreb-AV, a $250 million counter-battery radar system designed to detect the trajectory of incoming artillery and decide the purpose of origin for munitions.

Moscow touted the Yastreb-AV as a contemporary and extremely succesful system in its bulletins, with state media reporting that it was examined in late 2021 or early 2022. However simply hours after the announcement it had been fielded in Ukraine, it was hit laborious by the very menace it was there to assist defeat.

Ukraine’s Particular Operations Forces mentioned on Telegram that it found the Yastreb-AV throughout a reconnaissance mission, however the precise battlefield location stays unclear.

Ukrainian forces then fired munitions from a US-made Excessive Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) on the uncovered Russian goal, which was destroyed by fireplace injury. Kyiv printed a video of the strike to a number of social media channels.

Enterprise Insider was unable to right away independently confirm Ukraine’s declare that the Yastreb-AV was destroyed, however the video does seem to point that the system took important injury. Within the footage, somebody might be seen fleeing the scene within the aftermath because the radar system smolders.

Counter-battery radar methods just like the Yastreb-AV have been important for each Ukraine and Russia all through the conflict, which has featured relentless and brutal artillery duels. These methods permit for every navy to detect incoming projectiles and rapidly pinpoint the origin level, paving means for a return of fireside earlier than enemy weapons are moved.

Moscow has relied closely on its Zoopark-1M radar, a hard-to-replace system that is weak to detection due to its lively electromagnetic signature. For that reason, the Zoopark-1M has taken a beating on the battlefield, with Ukrainian forces taking out the important radars. At one level over the summer time, Western intelligence even estimated that Russia was affected by a “worsening scarcity” of those methods, and mentioned the “survivability” of Moscow’s navy relied on its protection towards Ukrainian artillery.

Ukraine, then again, has used Western-provided methods just like the US-provided AN/TPQ-36 radars, instruments which have aided it within the counter-battery fight.

The importance of those counter-battery methods was underscored by the Russian protection ministry and state media on Tuesday shortly earlier than Moscow misplaced its prized Yastreb-AV.

“The usage of trendy artillery reconnaissance tools, similar to Zoopark-1M and Yastreb-AV, along with the usage of unmanned aerial automobiles (UAVs), which enhance the effectiveness of artillery fireplace and survivability on the battlefield, ensures the efficient efficiency of the fight duties of missilemen and artillerymen,” the protection ministry mentioned in a statement shared to Telegram.

“Along with the Zoopark-1M complicated, Yastreb-AV gives detection of Ukrainian artillery firing positions,” state-run Sputnik information company wrote. “On the identical time, the traits of the brand new complicated are superior.”

Whereas Ukraine’s strike on the Yastreb-AV didn’t come amid any important battlefield actions, Tuesday noticed Russian forces launch an enormous missile and drone attack at navy and civilian targets throughout the nation, killing at the very least 5 folks and injuring greater than 120 others.

The previous few days have seen Russia fireplace some 500 missiles and drones at Ukraine, Kyiv’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. These embody each cruise and ballistic missiles, and explosive one-way assault drones. Many of those have been shot down.

“Previous to Ukraine, no nation on this planet had ever efficiently repulsed such mixed assaults with the usage of drones and missiles, together with air-launched ballistic missiles,” Zelenskyy mentioned.

In the meantime, Britain’s protection ministry famous in a Wednesday intelligence update that by rising the depth of its long-range aerial marketing campaign towards Ukraine over the previous few days, Russia has dedicated a “significant slice” of the missile stockpile that it had constructed up in latest months, elevating some questions concerning the sustainability of such assaults.

Learn the unique article on Business Insider