SIBERIAN RADAR FACILITY CALLED MOST SERIOUS ABM VIOLATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330054-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 54
• Publication Date: August 7, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Y Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330054-5 STAT
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WASHINGTON TIMES
.7 August Siberian radar facifity called most
serious ABM violation
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
U.S. officials at a bilateral arms
control commission reauested that
the Soviet Union halt construction
on years a ratio after facility two
ter intelligence
vio to
showed that the radar would
the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Tmea according to a secret re rt
.
on Soviet arms violations,
A section of the report on the
Soviet radar installation at Kras-
noyarsk reveals that the facility fills
"the last remaining gap" in Soviet
radar coverage against incoming
nuclear missiles and is incapable of
tracking space launches, which the
Soviets had claimed was its purpose.
The analysis appeared in a classi-
fied 1904' report titled "Soviet Non-
Compj Ace with Arms Control
Agreements:' It contradicts Soviet
statements that the radar con-
structietrtloes not violate the ABM
Treaty because it is intended for
tracking space vehicles.
An unclassified version of the
report was released last year. A copy
of the secret report was obtained by
The Washington Times from admin-
istration sources.
After the radar was first detected
in July 1983, the report reveals, the
U.S. representative to the Geneva
Standing Consultative Comission on
arms control, Gen. Richard Ellis,
told his Soviet counterpart, Viktor
Starodubov, that the radar installa-
tion violated an ABM treaty prohibi-
tion on building early warning
radars away from a country's bord-
ers.
Gen. Ellis, a former commander
of the Strategic Air Command,
requested the Soviets halt con-
struction on the radar until the dis-
pute could be resolved.
Mr. Starodubov rejected the
request and said the U.S. charge was
"groundless, the report states. The-
radar is expected to become oper-
ational by 1988.
"We do not build or deploy such
radars unless they are in compliance
with the ABM Treaty," Mr.
Starodubov is quoted as saying.
Gen. Ellis could not be reached for
comment on the exchange. An Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency
spokesman declined to comment on
the SCC discussions, saying all diplo-
matic exchanges "are highly confi-
dential:'
The new radar, located between
the central Siberian cities of Kras-
noyarsk and Abalakova,has been
identified as a large,
"phased-array"
transmitter with a flat bank of fixed
antennas 22 stories tall.
The radar complex is 479 feet long
and 288 feet wide. It operates by
sending and receiving a spray of
electronic pulses in varying wave-
lengths, which permits the system to
spot metal objects as far away as
Alaska.
The location and direction of the
radar are believed to indicate that
the Soviet Union is preparing a
nationwide, defense against ballistic
missiles.
Krasnoyarsk is more than 450
miles from the closest border, with
Mongolia, and the radar is pointed
northeast, not directed toward the
border.
Experts believe its location would
permit the radar, when used with
rapid-processing computers, to
coordinate attacks on incoming mis-
sile warheads aimed at ICBM fields
in the southwestern Soviet Union.
The Reagan administration last
year considered the radar to be
"almost certainly" a violation of the
ABM treaty. In a February report to
Congress, the radar was described
as a definite ABMviolation.
Since the 1984 report, U.S. intel-
ligence has detected other signs of
an impending Soviet ABM breakout,
including the recent discovery of six
large silos at various points
throughout the U.S.S.R. They are
believed to be sites for the "Flat
Twin" pop-up radars currently in
use with missile defense
interceptors around Moscow, a US-
intelligence expert said. The Soviets
operate the world's only operational
ABM system, around Moscow, which
is permitted under the treaty.
Besides the radar, the Soviet con-
current testing of ABM interceptors
and tactical air defense missiles, the
upgrading of surface-to-air missfles,?
- the rapid reload of Moscow ABMs
and ABM component mobility "sug-
gests that the US.S.R. may be pre-
paring an ABM defense of its
national territory," a 1985 govern-
ment report on Soviet violations
states.
Regarding the 1983 discussions
on the Siberian radar, the report
states that "the basic objective of the
United States in these [SCC] discus-
sions [in Geneva} was to minimize
the possibility that Soviet LPAR's
[long-range phased array radars]
not limited by the ABM Treaty as
ABM radars could provide a base for
a national ABM defense in circum-
vention of the provisions of Article I
of the Treaty, the report states.
Article I of the ABM treaty binds
the United States and Soviet Union
to a pledge not to "provide a base"
for an anti-missile defense of its ter-
ritory.
"The discovery of Krasnoyarsk
signalled the beginning of the end of
ABM' eaty constraints on the Sovi-
ets" said the expert, who requested
anonymity.
Critics of US. arms policy have
charged that U.S. complaints about
Soviet ABM violations are part of
the Reagan administration's plan to
negotiate amendments to the treaty
that would permit development of
the proposed Stategic Defense Ini-
tiative, popularly known as "star
wars!,
Robert Jastrow, a U.S. space sci-
ence expert, described the Kras-
noyarsk radar construction as a
"direct, literal" Soviet ABM viola.
tion and the most serious breach
since 1972.
"Before the ink was dry on the
[1972] SALT I agreement, the Sovi-
ets began to test their surface-to-air
missiles at altitudes around 100,000
feet;' Mr. Jastrow said in a recent
speech. "No airplane flies at 100,000
feet, but missiles do"
He said the ABM treaty forbids
phased-array radars unless they are
on the border and facing outward.
Such radars are permitted by the
treaty for "early warning, or not at
all;' he added.
The report on Krasnoyarsk rules
out the possibility the radar is for
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330054-5
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330054-5
a
early warning of ballistic missiles. It
says the new Soviet radar could have
provided an additional six minutes
advance notice of incoming missiles
if it were on the northeastern border
and within treaty restraints.
"This radar is far from Soviet
borders and fairly close to a large
field of Soviet ICBMS;' Mr. Jastrow
said. "Its function is unmistakable:'
The diplomatic exchange
between the Soviets and the U.S.
delegation two years ago in Geneva
reveals the difficulty in addressing
treaty violations by the Soviet
Union. In the case of the Kras-
noyarsk radar, the Soviet side pro-
vided' justifications that were easily
knocked down by 'U S. intelligence
analysis.
In defending Soviet construction
of the radar, the leader of the Soviet
delegation, Mr. Starodubov, told U.S.
diplomats Krasnoyarsk "had the
specific mission of tracking objects
in outer. space:' He claimed the
radar will monitor flights and land-
ings of manned Soviet spacecraft
launched from Tyuratam and
Plesetsk missile ranges east of Kras-
noyarsk.
Mr. Starodubov, a negotiator at the
Geneva arms talks, also said the,
Krasnoyarsk will also track space
objects "for verification of compli-
ance by the sides with their obliga-
tions in the use of outer space:"
Mr. Jastrow said it was impossible
for the Soviets to track space
launches because the Soviet space
center is hundreds of miles east of
Krasnoyarsk and the turn of the
earth would preclude accurate mon-
itoring.
"The U.S. Commissioner [Gen.
Ellis] rebutted the Soviet response
by stating that the U.S. side's analy-
sis of current Soviet space programs
indicates that the orientation and
location of this radar would not allow
it to monitor the launches, insertions
into orbit, or landing of current
Soviet manned space systems," the
report states.
The location and orientation of
the Krasnoyarsk radar prevents it
from improving existing radar cov-
erage of space flights "even if they
were launched with inclinations of
up to 70 degrees;" U.S. analysts con-
cluded.
They also said a Soviet
spacecraft, regardless of launch
inclination, would enter orbit "sev-
eral hundred kilometers" after it
could be picked up by the Kras-
noyarsk radar screen.
Based on these findings, the
report states that U.S. Commis-
sioner Ellis dismissed the Soviet
explanation with the following
points:
? The radar "has numerous phys-
ical similarities to other large
phased array radars in the U.S.S.R.
that have been identified by the
Soviet side as ballistic missile early
warning radars:'
? It "will have the inherent cap-
ability to track ballistic missiles in
flight trajectory."
? It "is located to fiU. alt obvious
and significant gap in the coverage
provided by Soviet radars for early
warning of ballistic missile attack:'
? It "will also have the inherent
capability to perform ABM func-
tions:'
? The radar "could not monitor
the insertion and landing phases of
Soviet spacecraft launched from
Soviet test ranges:'
? It "will not be able to contribute
in any meaningful way as national
technical means of verification of
U.S. compliance with.... the ABM
treaty or ... any other agreement:"
? The "U.S. side sees no practical
application of this radar in future
manned space programs:"
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/10/10: CIA-RDP90-00965R000302330054-5