#2
Vremya Novostei
No. 165
September 2002
[transation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
CAN THE NEW YORK TRAGEDY BE REPEATED IN MOSCOW?
Can hijacked planes be used to stage a terrorist act in Russia? General of the Army Anatoly KORNUKOV, ex-commander of the Russian Air Force and now military-technical adviser to the director general of the Almaz research and production association, talks about this with Vremya Novostei analyst Nikolai POROSKOV.

Question: Can this happen in Moscow?

Answer: This possibility cannot be excluded because airports are located very closely to the capital. It is just a few minutes' flight to the Kremlin. Even despite the strict system of air control it would take at least ten minutes to alert air defence missile systems that can stop the terrorist act. The thing is that they are not kept on red alert around the clock because this is very expensive. Even the Soviet Union could not afford it.

Question: How dangerous it would be to down planes over Moscow?

Answer: Damage will be incredible in this case. The fragments of a large plan and a powerful missile would fall down on a large city with residential areas, nuclear reactors in research institutes, chemical factories and arsenals. But we would still do this in case of need. I said in September a year ago and I repeat now that we should calculate in which case the damage would be greater.

Question: What does law say on the issue?

Answer: The law prohibits the destruction of civilian and sport planes. However, we can still down them if we know that these planes were hijacked and there are no passengers on board. But how can this be established reliably?

Question: Can an interceptor use a stream of compressed air to force the hijacker to land?

Answer: Impossible. Such attempts have failed. Besides, this will not stop a suicide terrorist. The only way is to shoot him down.

Question: Can you shoot down a suicide pilot in a small plane flying very low?

Answer: In the endangered period we monitor all craft flying at the altitude of even 50-60 metres. It is hardly possible to track the target in the ordinary combat duty regime, when the low-level radar is set for 200 m.

Question: Can you describe the Moscow air defence system?

Answer: Code-named S-50, it is a multi-echelon system that includes Belarus, the Smolensk zone where interceptors were raised to stop the violator, and fire systems deployed outside Moscow. Moscow is protected by four defence lines. The first is located 250-300 km outside the city where mobile systems are deployed. The second is stationary and located 100-120 km outside Moscow. The third is located 50 km away and the fourth is in the heart of Moscow, where two air defence regiments (six battalions) are deployed for repelling guided missiles. These positions have not changed since then although I will not tell you the exact location of these systems. Radars also cover the air outside Moscow but their parameters and working regime have been changed.

The external rings are still intact, with Belarus as part of the Joint Air Defence System of the CIS countries. We are also creating a joint Russia-Belarus regional air defence system. The S-50 system now consists of two echelons located 120 and 50 km outside Moscow.

Question: When will the S-400 air defence missile system, on which so many hopes are pinned, be put on combat duty?

Answer: Next year, I think. By the way, the system was created in the Almaz association, where all of the Soviet and Russian air defence missile systems, including the S-25, S-75, S-125, S-200 and S-300 were created. These days Almaz is celebrating its 55th anniversary. Its systems have won worldwide fame.

The S-400 system is an expensive system and we need quite a few of them. It can hit targets at super-low to space-high altitudes at the speed of from 100 km an hour to several thousand km a second. The system can work as an air defence system by destroying the warheads of missiles and also down terrorists. It was designed against short-, medium- and long-range missiles.

I can tell you a secret: Almaz is collaborating with a certain company to create a Pantsir small mobile air defence system, cheap and with a high interference protection level that will cover small facilities. It has already engendered major interest in the world.

BACK TO THE TOP    #222 CONTENTS    NEXT ARTICLE