Baranavichy Radar Station () (sometimes wrongly named GantsavichyThe names vary as the station may be wrongly named after the nearby town of Hantsavichy, but with different

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

s depending on whether we consider the name to be Russian or Belarusian. The character Г is a G in Russian and an H in Belarusian. Using the BGN/PCGN Romanisation standard the Belarusian name Га́нцавічы would be written as Hantsavichy and using Wikipedia's Russian Romanisation standard the Russian name Ганцевичи would be written as Gantsevichi) is a 70M6 Volga-type

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

near

Hantsavichy Hantsavichy or Gantsevichi (, ; , ; ) is a town in Brest Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Hantsavichy District. As of 2025, it has a population of 13,248. The Hantsavichy Radar Station is a part of the Russian early war ...

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

(48 km from

Baranavichy Baranavichy or Baranovichi is a city in the Brest Region of western Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Baranavichy District, though it is administratively separated from the district. As of 2025, it has a population of 170,817. ...

). It is an

early warning radar An early-warning radar is any radar system used primarily for the long-range detection of its targets, i.e., allowing defences to be alerted as ''early'' as possible before the intruder reaches its target, giving the air defences the maximum tim ...

, which is run by the

Russian Space Forces The Russian Space Forces () is the space force branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces. It was reestablished following the August 1, 2015 merger between the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces, after the independent arm of s ...

. It is designed to identify launches of

ballistic missile A ballistic missile is a type of missile that uses projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. These weapons are powered only during relatively brief periods—most of the flight is unpowered. Short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) typic ...

s from western Europe and can also track some artificial satellites, partly replacing the demolished radar station at

Skrunda Skrunda (; ) is a town in the Courland region of Latvia. It lies 150 km (95 mi) west of the capital city Riga in Kuldīga Municipality. History The historical sources first mentioned Skrunda () in the Curonian Peninsula in 1253. In 1 ...

in Latvia.

History

The Volga was developed by

NIIDAR The NIIDAR company, the ''Scientific and Research Institute for Long-Distance Radio Communications'' () is a Russian manufacturer of radar systems. History It was established in 1916 as an automobile repairs workshop, to repair vehicles damaged du ...

from the Dunay-3U radar. Construction started in 1982 to counter the installation of

Pershing II The Pershing II Weapon System was a solid-fueled two-stage medium-range ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System as the United States Army's primary nuclear-capable thea ...

missiles in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

which were only 6 to 8 minutes away in flight time. These intermediate missiles were eliminated by the

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union (and its successor state, the Russia, Russian Federation). President of the United States, US President Ronald Rea ...

, which was signed in December 1987. Work still continued on the radar even though the Pershing missiles had been removed. The radar was not compliant with the 1972

ABM treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, also known as the ABM Treaty or ABMT, was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against bal ...

as this forbade multifunction radars. The Volga was in breach of this as it was designed to guide

anti-ballistic missile An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to Missile defense, destroy in-flight ballistic missiles. They achieve this explosively (chemical or nuclear), or via hit-to-kill Kinetic projectile, kinetic vehicles, which ma ...

s (an 'ABM radar') as well as acting as an early warning radar. As the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

had managed to get the

Daryal radar The Daryal-type radar () (NATO: Pechora) is a Soviet bistatic early-warning radar. It consists of two separate large active phased-array antennas separated by around to . The transmitter array is and the receiver is in size. The system is a ...

Yeniseysk Yeniseysk ( rus, Енисейск, p=jɪnʲɪˈsʲejsk) is a town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. Population: 20,000 (1970). History Yeniseysk was founded in 1619 as a stockaded town—the first town on the Yenisei ...

demolished for being in breach of the treaty the Soviet Union removed ABM radar abilities from the Volga as it was being built. Work on the radar stopped in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. It restarted in 1993 once it became apparent that Russia would lose the early warning station in

and with it coverage of missiles from the north west. Some testing took place in 1994 and in 1995 a 25-year agreement was signed between Russia and Belarus giving Russia a 25-year lease on the ground and all buildings with no taxes and with no charge made for communication channels. The lease was extended in 2021. When the Dnestr-M radars in Skrunda were shut down in 1998 Russia restarted the construction of the Volga. Test operations started in 1999 and pilot operations in 2002. It was finally commissioned on 1 October 2003. The radar was upgraded in 2016. One of the manufacturers was quoted as saying that two other Volga installations were once planned - one at

Komsomolsk-na-Amur Komsomolsk-on-Amur ( rus, Комсомольск-на-Амуре, r=Komsomolsk-na-Amure, p=kəmsɐˈmolʲsk nɐ‿ɐˈmurʲə) is a city in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located on the west bank of the Amur River in the Russian Far East. It is locat ...

and one at

Sevastopol Sevastopol ( ), sometimes written Sebastopol, is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea. Due to its strategic location and the navigability of the city's harbours, Sevastopol has been an important port and naval base th ...

. Another source says that a Volga was originally planned in

Biysk Biysk ( rus, Бийск, p=bʲijsk; , ) is a city in Altai Krai, Russia, located on the Biya River not far from its confluence with the Katun River. It is the second largest city of the krai (after Barnaul, the administrative center of the krai ...

Altai Krai Altai Krai (, ) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai). It borders, clockwise from the west, Kazakhstan ( East Kazakhstan Region, Abai Region and Pavlodar Region), Novosibirsk and Kemerovo, and the Altai Republic. The krai's administrative ce ...

to provide coverage of China.

Volga radar

The station, classed as a 'Volga' type, is similar to a

but operates on the

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

band rather than the VHF of the Daryal. Like the Daryal it has a separate transmitter and receiver stations which in the case of the Volga are apart. The radar has an

Active Electronically Scanned Array An active electronically scanned array (AESA) is a type of phased array antenna, which is a computer-controlled antenna array in which the beam of radio waves can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving the a ...

, a type of

phased array In antenna (radio), antenna theory, a phased array usually means an electronically scanned array, a computer-controlled Antenna array, array of antennas which creates a radio beam, beam of radio waves that can be electronically steered to point ...

. It continuously radiates such that it is receiving and transmitting at the same time. The array consists of spiral radiators which rotate in different directions in the receiver and transmitter. The transmitter array is and the receiver array is . Both arrays are surrounded by a ferrite frame which absorbs radio waves. The Volga has a range of around and an

azimuth An azimuth (; from ) is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north, in a local or observer-centric spherical coordinate system. Mathematically, the relative position vector from an observer ( origin) to a point ...

of 120°, with

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of 4° to 70°. Its

GRAU index The Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (), commonly referred to by its transliterated acronym GRAU (), is a department of the Russian Ministry of Defense. It is subordinate to the Chief of ...

is 70M6 .

The site

The radar is 8 km north east of Hantavichy and from Baranavichy. It is in the Hantsavichy Raion of the Brest Region of Belarus. The

military townlet In military of Russia and some other post-Soviet states (as well as in the former Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, ...

for the radar is called Kletsk-2 (). When the station opened it was stated that up to 200 local Belarusians could be employed there. In 2007 ''Kommersant'' estimated that 600 people worked at the station.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hantsavichy Radar Station Soviet military radars Russian military radars Russian Space Forces Military installations of Russia in other countries Military equipment introduced in the 2000s Military locations of Belarus

History

Volga radar

The site

See also

Notes

References