President Petro Poroshenko received two AN/TPQ-36 counter battery radar stations from the U.S. military on Nov. 14 at the Yavoriv training ground in Lviv Oblast.
He
received the radar stations as the frontline in eastern Ukraine remains “tense
and threatening,” according to a statement on the president’s official website.
The
delivery is part of a U.S. program for military and technical cooperation, an
agreement that U.S. President Barack Obama and his Ukrainian counterpart brokered
in September in New York.
According
to the Federation of American Scientists, the so-called Firefinder Radar isa “lightweight, small, highly mobile radar set capable of
detecting weapon projectiles launched at any angle within selected 90-degree
azimuth sectors over 360 degrees of coverage.
The AN/TPQ-36 can locate simultaneous and volley-fire weapons. It can
also be used to register and adjust friendly fire. Upon projectile detection,
the weapon location is computed and is used to direct counter-battery fires.”
The U.S. has already given Ukraine radar equipment to detect motar fire,
but not for longer range projectiles like Grad rockets. Combined
Russian-separatist forces have had the technological advantage in the war in
eastern Ukraine where more than 8,000 people have been killed, according to the
United Nations.
More than 2.2 million have been displaced, of whom 1.4 million
internally, causing the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.
The U.S. 2016 defense budget allocated $300 million for the enhancement
of Ukraine’s defense capacity. It’s the equivalent of more than Hr 7 billion,
Poroshenko noted.
“It is a huge sum of money. Especially, if we evaluate it in terms of
our spending for the defense-security complex, which in 2016 will amount to Hr 100
billion approximately,” the President stated.
Poroshenko added that his “is confident the Ukrainian servicemen will
soon learn how to use these stations with the assistance of American
instructors.”
Kyiv Post editor Mark Rachkevych
can be reached [email protected].
