Ukrainian Commandos Riding In Speedboats Captured A High-Tech Russian Radar Vehicle

In seven weeks of fighting, Ukrainian troops have captured no fewer than 982 Russian vehicles. Among them are some of the Russian army’s most sophisticated ground-based sensors and electronic-warfare systems.

It’s possible the Ukrainians deliberately targeted some of these vehicles for capture. Others, the Russians simply abandoned as their offensive around Kyiv first stalled out, then collapsed.

One of the most recent captures also is one of the most interesting—and potentially the most useful to Ukraine’s own army. A SNAR-10M1 tracked radar vehicle, which can spot ground forces in order to guide artillery fire.

Ukrainian special operations forces captured the SNAR-10M1 in early April around Chernihiv, a city 60 miles northwest of Kyiv where, for more than a month, the Ukrainian army’s elite 1st Tank Brigade held out against a much bigger Russian force.

As the battered Russian forces around Kyiv began retreating back to Russia and Belarus, a force of around 30 Ukrainian commandos piled into speedboats and sped along what appeared to be the Desna River near Chernihiv.

Disembarking, the lightly-armed operators intercepted a small Russian convoy seemingly mired in mud near the river. No dead bodies are visible in the videos and photos the Ukrainians posted on social media, so it’s possible the Russians abandoned their vehicles. Reportedly, no Ukrainians were hurt or killed in the raid.

The commandos seized at last four vehicles: an MT-LB and two BTR tracked personnel carriers and a SNAR-10M1. Hauled away by civilian tractors, these joined the nearly thousand other ex-Russian vehicles the Ukrainian army now owns. There’s some evidence Kyiv’s forces have captured a second SNAR-10, as well.

The SNAR-10M1 is a valuable piece of kit. It’s the latest version of a self-propelled radar that first entered service in the early 1970s. Adapted from the MT-LB, the four-person SNAR-10 boasts a radar whose main function is to detect enemy artillery fire and provide coordinates for counterbattery barrages.

The M1 version reportedly is capable of a wider range of missions. “The station is designed for reconnaissance of moving ground, air and surface targets,” the Russian defense ministry explained. “It is capable of detecting the enemy’s equipment and manpower, projectile impacts at ranges from 200 meters to 40 kilometers.”

That higher fidelity apparently gives the SNAR-10M1 the ability to track not just enemy artillery, but other armored vehicles, as well.

The Russians in theory deploy one of the world’s most sophisticated sensor-shooter networks for artillery. Self-propelled howitzers and rocket-launchers, cued by drones, radio-eavesdroppers and ground radars such as the SNAR-10M1, in principle can fire on a target within minutes—seconds, the Kremlin claims—of its detection. Laser-guided shells boost the guns’ accuracy.

The Russians’ ability to spot targets and walk in artillery—and fast—was apparent eight years ago, in the early months of Russia’s support of anti-government separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. In late July 2014, Ukrainian troops attacked separatists then controlling the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Russian electronic warfare and artillery—including SNAR-10M1s—worked together to smash Ukrainian columns, compelling Kyiv to narrow its aims. Moscow’s poorly-led, undersupplied forces have struggled to maintain the same sensor-shooter network in the current war, however.

The Ukrainian army was sufficiently impressed with the SNAR-10M1 back in 2014 that it began reactivating old SNAR-10s it had in storage. It’s unclear how many of the radar vehicles the Ukrainians possess, but that number grew by one with the Chernihiv raid.

The Ukrainians have developed their own fire-control system for artillery that heavily relies on commercial drones spotting targets for guns firing laser-guided shells. It can’t hurt to back up the drones with some ex-Russian radar vehicles.