December 2, 2002. Copyright 2002. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

Ukrainian radar system worries war planners

LONDON, December 2, Graphic News: The weapons system which has landed Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma in international hot water over an alleged black-market sale to Iraq is an advanced radar system believed to be capable of spotting American stealth aircraft.

U.S. stealth fighters and bombers such as the F117, B1 and B2 played key roles in the Gulf and Kosovo wars as they are almost impossible to detect using conventional radar. The United States has already cut off $55 million in aid to Ukraine, charging that secret tape recordings made two years ago by a former bodyguard of Kuchma appear to show him authorising the illegal $100-million sale of four ÒKolchugaÓ radar stations to Baghdad, in violation of United Nations sanctions.

The radar -- nicknamed Kolchuga after the Russian word for chain-mail armour -- is a ÒpassiveÓ anti-aircraft radar system. It has a complex of four receivers that pick up and coordinate the position of signals emitted or reflected by approaching aircraft, and is described as capable of detecting aircraft as far away as 800 kilometers (500 miles). The system, made by Donetsk-based company Topaz, was first shown at an arms fair in Turkey in 1999 and in Jordan in April 2000.

In a clandestine taped conversation, dated July 10, 2000, and released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Valeriy Malev, head of the state arms-export company, Ukrspetzexport, told the Ukrainian President that Iraq wanted to buy four Kolchuga radars through an unnamed Jordanian intermediary. According to the transcript of the conversation, Kuchma tells Malev: ÒJust watch that the Jordanian keeps his mouth shut.Ó

A joint U.S.-UK inspection team which visited the Ukraine in October 2002 concluded that four Kolchugas were not accounted for. The report, released November 26, said that the Ukrainian government had supplied U.S. and British experts with information on 72 out of 76 Kolchuga radar systems. 

Most of the systems had been supplied to Russia or the Ukraine military, and three radar stations were sold to the Ministry of National Defence of Ethiopia in April 2000. Ethiopia provided the end-user certificate through an intermediary firm in Israel. Ukrainian officials said the remaining four Kolchuga systems had been sold to China, but the experts said they did not have access to documents confirming this statement.

Experts say that the Kolchuga would be an attractive system for the Iraqis because unlike traditional radars, it emits no signals. U.S. and British aircraft patrolling the two Òno-flyÓ zones over Iraq use HARM anti-radiation missiles which follow radar signals back to their source and destroy the radar antenna. 

However, these passive radar systems are not thought to be accurate enough to provide targeting data for anti-aircraft missiles. They could serve only as an early warning system or to cue other active radars that could provide more accurate data.

Within the last few years, Lockheed Martin has produced a more sophisticated passive radar system called ÒSilent SentryÓ that can use the reflections from commercial FM radio, television signals and mobile phones which saturate the ether. If the Kolchuga -- which also uses these longer wavelengths -- is similarly advanced, warplanners believe it poses a significant threat.

As an aircraft flies through this soup of music and electronic chit chat, short bursts of radio waves -- known as enhanced half-wave reflections -- are bounced in every direction, just as a mirrored sphere bounces light all over a dance floor. If radar operators can detect and plot these ghostly traces, they may be able to track stealth aircraft. 

One of the best ways to pick up these flickering signals is to separate the transmitter and receiver, an arrangement known as bistatic radar. High-speed computers and sophisticated software can use these fragmentary data to plot the path flown by a stealth aircraft and predict its course with enough accuracy to saturate a given piece of the sky with anti-aircraft fire, a technique which is believed to have resulted in the downing of a F-117 Nighthawk stealth bomber during the Kosovo campaign in March 1999.

The threat is not confined to stealth aircraft. Conventional warplanes emit signals from altimeters, radar and other devices. Steven Zaluga, a military technology analyst for the U.S. consulting firm Teal Group Corp., said that the question was whether the Kolchuga system was sophisticated enough to resolve those signals from the cacophony of ordinary airwaves. ÒIf itÕs a high-quality system, it would be of some concern,Ó Zaluga said.
/ENDS

Sources: JaneÕs Intelligence Review, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Lockheed Martin