Russia Deploys Bal, Bastion Coastal Missile Systems to Kuril Islands

[Hindustani78]

13:44 22.11.2016(updated 13:52 22.11.2016)

Russia has deployed the Bal and Bastion mobile anti-ship missile systems to its far eastern Kuril Islands, the Pacific Fleet’s official newspaper reported.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Earlier this year, the Bastion coastal defense missile system assumed combat duty and the forming of the second missile battalion is currently ongoing, the Boyevaya Vakhta newspaper said.

According to the publication, the personnel of the coastal missile division Bal has been actively working to prepare and conduct firing exercises in the Japan Sea since May 2015.

The Bastion fires supersonic Oniks cruise missiles, with a range of up to 280 miles and could be used against ships and targets on the ground.

The Kuril Islands are the subject of the long-standing territorial dispute between Russia and Japan. Japan lays claims to Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan islands and the Habomai group of islets. The territorial dispute has prevented Russia and Japan from signing a peace treaty after the World War II.

The K-300P Bastion-P, which NATO refers to as SS-C-5 Stooge, coastal defense missile system has attracted international attention when Russia said that the platform took part in combat operations in Syria. Along with the 3K60 Bal, the Bastion has recently been deployed to the Kuril Islands.

The Bastion is meant to engage surface ships including carrier battle groups, convoys and landing craft amid counter fire and electronic warfare, as well as land-based targets. These capabilities have been unveiled earlier this month when the system was used to attack ground targets for the first time in its history.


"I think this combat use was aimed at testing the system's combat capabilities against ground targets, rather than at destroying an important enemy target," defense analyst Konstantin Sivkov told RIA Novosti earlier this month.

The system is equipped with the P-800 Oniks, a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile with a maximum range of 300 kilometers (more than 186 miles). Oniks's export version is known as Yakhont.

The Bastion, in development since the late 1970s, has been in service since 2010, with the first three systems delivered to the Black Sea Fleet. It is manufactured by the NPO Mashinostroyeniya rocket design bureau.

The Bastion launcher is operated by a crew of five people, including commander, operator and driver. It has a short deployment time and can be combat ready in less than five minutes. The Oniks missiles could be launched with an interval of two to five seconds.

The coastal defense missile system is capable of remaining on active standby for up to five days. It can be located up to 200 kilometers (more than 124 miles) from the coast.

The 3K60 Bal, designated by NATO as SSC-6 'Sennight', is meant to provide cover to territorial waters, naval bases, other coastal facilities and infrastructure under favorable and adverse weather conditions in daytime and at night.

The system was developed by more than ten corporations, with JSC RPC Konstruktorskoye Byuro Mashynostroyeniya taking the lead. It has been in service with the Russian Armed Forces since 2008.

The 3K60 Bal includes up to two mobile command control centers, up to four self-propelled launching vehicles carrying Zvezda Kh-35U subsonic anti-ship missiles and up to four transport and refueling vehicles.

The system is capable of hitting targets located up to 120 kilometers (74.5 miles) away, launching a total of 32 missiles with a maximum interval of up to three seconds. It can be combat ready in less than 10 minutes.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-japan-islands-missiles-idUSKBN13I0UJ

By Christian Lowe | MOSCOW

The deployment of Russian missile systems on the Kurile islands should not influence efforts to settle the long-running territorial dispute between Moscow and Tokyo over the islands, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Russian media reported on Tuesday that the Bastion and Bal anti-ship missile systems were now in operation on the Kurile islands, an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean over which Russia and Japan have staked rival claims for 70 years.

Officials in Moscow and Tokyo say they are making a renewed push to resolve the dispute, and a planned visit to Japan in December by Russian President Vladimir Putin is now the focus for those efforts.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian defense ministry without doubt had grounds for deploying the missile systems, without giving any details.

"But at the same time from our point of view it should not in any way influence the centripetal trend which exists in our bilateral relations with Tokyo," Peskov said on a conference call with reporters.

He said that trend existed "in terms of the careful preparations for the forthcoming visit of President Putin to Japan, and in terms of continuing contacts to develop our bilateral ties, especially in the economic sphere, and negotiations on the peace deal issue."

The Bastion is a mobile defense system armed with two anti-ship missiles with a range of up to 300 km (188 miles). It has also been deployed in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The Bal anti-ship missile has a similar range.

The dispute over the islands, known as the Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan, has strained relations between the two countries since World War Two, when Soviet forces occupied four islands at the southern end of the chain.


The dispute is so acrimonious that Moscow and Tokyo have still not signed a formal peace treaty ending World War Two hostilities.

When Putin visits in December, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is scheduled to host the Russian leader in his hometown of Nagato in southern Japan. Abe said earlier this year he hoped the venue would create a relaxed atmosphere conducive to progress on the peace talks.

(Reporting by Christian Lowe; Editing by Maria Kiselyova and Raissa Kasolowsky)

 

[Hindustani78]

https://sputniknews.com/military/201611241047803466-russian-coastal-defense-kurils-causes/

On Tuesday, the official newspaper of the Russian Pacific Fleet confirmed that the Bal and Bastion anti-ship missile systems had been deployed to the Kuril Islands. Commentators rushed to ask what effect this will have on Russian-Japanese relations. Sputnik spoke to several respected Russian military and geopolitics experts to find out.

Earlier this week, Boyevaya Vakhta, the official newspaper of Russia's Pacific Fleet, confirmed that Moscow had deployed the 3K60 Bal and K-300P Bastion to the southern Kuril Islands of Iturup and Kunashir earlier this year, with one Bastion system already on active combat duty, and a second being prepared for deployment. It was not revealed exactly when the systems had been made operational, but Moscow had made it known that it planned to deploy advanced defensive systems to the region since at least 2011, as part of an effort to create a unified system of coastal defenses stretching from Vladivostok to the Russian Arctic.

The Bal, in service since the early 2000s, is an advanced subsonic anti-ship missile meant to defend territorial waters, naval bases and other coastal facilities and infrastructure, and is capable of doing so any time day or night and in adverse weather conditions. Its missiles are capable of hitting targets up to 120 km away, with the system, which can be deployed for battle in less than 10 minutes, able to launch up to 32 missiles within an interval of three seconds.

Speaking to Sputnik, Kashin explained that the deployment of such weapons "is a planned process aimed at avoiding the reduction of the troop strength on the islands. Japan has long viewed Russia as a potential enemy. At the same time, we are now observing a very positive trend in relations. However, the southern Kuril Islands are still a disputed territory, which means that military units remain there. As planned, new generations of equipment are reequipping all units located on the Southern Kurils."


Furthermore, Valery Kistanov, the head of the Center for Japanese Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Far Eastern Studies, says that the deployment goes far beyond Russian-Japanese relations, and is part of Moscow's response to the security situation in Northeast Asia as a whole.

"There," Kistanov recalled, "we are seeing an arms race, growing tensions, exacerbated by a series of bilateral disputes, including territorial ones."

The analyst recalled for example that "the nuclear testing conducted by North Korea serves an excuse for increased military cooperation between the so-called US-South Korea-Japan [security] triangle. Talks are already being held to make it so that in addition to South Korea, the US could place its THAAD anti-missile systems on Japanese territory." Accordingly, he stressed, "these US plans are the main motivation for Russia's effort to strengthen its defensive capabilities in the Far East."

Ultimately, the analyst admitted that "the intention to strengthen the border is an indication of the desire to strengthen [Russia's] sovereignty" over the islands. "But this does not mean that we cannot engage in dialogue with Japan in the framework of international agreements, including the 1956 Joint Declaration between the Soviet Union and Japan."