Don't be bragger: when Ukraine blew up a new Russian weapon the country boasted about
It never pays to brag and boast about a new toy or in the case of war about a new weapon. That is just what Russia found out back in January.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed one of Russia’s newest and rarest weapons just hours after Moscow touted its arrival on the battlefields of Ukraine. However, the irony of the situation was much worse than it appears.
On January 2nd, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the Kremlin deployed one of the country’s 1K148 Yastreb-AV counter-battery radar systems to Ukraine, a machine it described as one of its most modern radars.
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Counter-battery radar systems are designed to detect the trajectory of incoming artillery shells in order to locate their point of origin and return fire according to Business Insider, but Russia’s Yastreb-AV system could save itself.
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Just hours after Moscow revealed that a Yastreb-AV had been deployed to Ukraine, the system was found by Ukrainian forces and destroyed according to a statement from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense published online.
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A video of the incident was also posted along with the statement explaining that the new $250 million dollar counter-battery radar was taken out by a strike by the US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).
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In the video, the Russian Yastreb-AV can be seen taking up a position in a field before it is hit with a single explosion. A single person is later seen fleeing the vehicle but it is not apparent from the video that the system was destroyed.
The location of where the counter-battery system was destroyed wasn’t revealed but the irony of the incident wasn't lost on Forbes’s David Axe, who noted Moscow’s Yastreb-AV was destroyed by a strike it was made to protect against.
“The Russian loss isn’t just funny. It’s important,” Axe explained. “Artillery counter-battery radars are more important by the day in Ukraine as the war settles into a grinding attritional fight.”
“The side with the most responsive artillery and drones wins. Counter-battery radars can tilt the firepower balance, by allowing the user to spot enemy artillery shells in mid-flight and then pinpoint the battery that fired the shots,” Axe added.
The Russian Ministry of Defense would agree with Axe’s sentiment on the importance of counter-battery systems on the battlefield, and it noted that systems like the Yastreb-AV and the Zoopark M1 played an important role in its combat.
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"The use of modern artillery reconnaissance equipment, such as Zoopark-1M and Yastreb-AV, together with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles…ensures the effective performance of the combat tasks of missile man and artillerymen," the ministry wrote.
Jake Epstein pointed out in his report on the incident that Russia has relied heavily on systems like the Zoopark-1M throughout much of the conflict but added that Moscow’s Zoopark-1Ms have taken a beating in Ukraine.
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In July 2023, the British Ministry of Defence estimated that only a handful of the original Zoopark-1Ms sent to Ukraine at the beginning of the invasion remained active. This may explain why a Yastreb-AV was recently deployed.
Newsweek’s Ellie Cook pointed out that it is not known how many Yastreb-AV systems Russia has operated in Ukraine, but we do know that another system may have been destroyed in August according to Ukraine's military.
How the Ukrainains were able to detect the Yastreb-AV that hit is not known. But David Axe suggested that the Ukrainians may have been able to find the systems based on a distinctive signal its phased-array radar may have emitted.
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Few specifics are known about the Yastreb-AV system according to Army Recognition, but we do know that the counter-battery radar completed its military testing in 2021 or 2022 and was designed to detect rockets, missiles, and artillery fire.
“Mounted on an 8x8 BAZ-6910 chassis, the 1K148E Yastreb-AV is shrouded in mystery in terms of its technical specifications. Nevertheless, sources estimate the loss to Russia at $250 million… marking a significant financial and strategic setback for the Russian military,” Army Recognition wrote.
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