13 Oct 2016.
Andrue. Kramer | The New York Times
The Russian Arsenal has a new weapon – an inflatable
Somewhere in the Russian hinterland, where the grass sways in the wind, and in the distance shines Golden spire of the village Church, on the field, suddenly a fighter “MiG-31”, and a few minutes later – anti-aircraft missile systems, tells reporter The New York Times, Andrew E. Kramer in the article series “Dark art”. Then the plane and the rocket launcher disappear as quickly as it appeared.
“If you study the great historical battle, you will see that every time the victory brings the trick, says a military engineer Alexey Komarov. – Nobody ever wins honestly.”
“Mosquitoes in charge of the sale of military products in the company “Rusbal” that makes hot air balloons as well as supplying the Ministry of defence one of the little-known Russian military threats – growing Arsenal of inflatable tanks, planes and missiles,” explains the author.
Employees of the company produce “the most advanced models of “soft power” – models of equipment which even from a distance of 300 yards look absolutely natural and can appear and disappear in just a few minutes,” the article says.
“Russia under President Putin pushed again on the geopolitical arena. The Kremlin applies a range of covert tactics: silences critics abroad of the Russian Orthodox Church attaches to his conservative counter-revolution has been spreading false information among the European audience, and even, according to the Obama administration intervenes by hacking into the computers of the Democratic party, in the presidential campaign in America,” says the newspaper.
According to the newspaper, recently to this list were added “updated version of the longstanding interest of the Russian army for operations designed to deceive and conceal, deadly repertoire of tricks, called maskirovka. This is the doctrine of psychological warfare, which is becoming an increasingly important element of the geopolitical aspirations of the country.”
“The most recent use of Russian troops began operations, which were involved in this doctrine: the world is literally masked soldiers in the Crimea in 2014, with soldiers who allegedly “vacationing” or “acted” in Eastern Ukraine, as well as “the delivery of humanitarian aid by air” in Syria in 2015″, – stated in the article.
According to the author, the idea of maskirovka is to never admit their true intentions, to always deny their actions and to use all political and military means, in order to ensure its military advantages which gives the surprise. Military analysts call a doctrine of “tiered”. The author believes that there is no difference between camouflage clothes, masking soldier under a Bush, and political disinformation or a clever defaults at the top.
“In fact, almost all the operations for the deployment of Soviet or Russian troops over the past half century – from the “Prague spring” to Afghanistan, Chechnya and Ukraine – began with a simple but effective trick: the soldiers first appear in civilian clothes or in uniform without insignia,” – says the publication.
“Experts fear that the next theatre of such tactics will become the Baltic region,” writes the author.
Analysts outline the various hypothetical scenarios. “For example, the old Russian warship, simulating the failure mechanism, run aground on a sandbar in the Baltic sea. Soon for his “protection” will be deployed Marines”, – the newspaper writes.
“In the eyes of Russia Baltika funny that the credibility of NATO rests on every useless piece of land, so enough to take a narrow strip,” said Michael Coffman (Kennan Institute, USA).
The newspaper says: “of Course, the armed forces of other countries also use decoys. But the Russian doctrine of disguise is different from the operations of other large armies to cheating, because it’s strategic and tactical tricks are fused, and it is used in war and in peace time.”
“Their understanding of war is a game of chess, and in our play,” says Colonel David M. Glantz, a leading American expert on the Russian “fraudulent transactions”.
“In a well thought out ploy with the Russian maskirovka, as a good Russian play, usually builds up the underlying story, and then there is the unexpected plot twist” – says the author.
The newspaper returned to the subject of inflatable models of weapons, which produces “Rusbal”.
“The company does not disclose how many inflatable tanks it produced: numbers are classified. But Maria Oparina, Director of “Resbala”, daughter of the founder, said that last year the production volumes have increased. This contract is a small element of the Russian rearmament programme, with a budget of 660 billion dollars for 10 years and began in 2010,” the article says.
The company works for export, the newspaper said. She produced “an inflatable dummy air defense systems s-300 cost about $ 3 million to sell them to Iran”. But due to UN sanctions, Russia has suspended deliveries of real air defense systems. This year the delivery took place, but Iran has lost interest in the dummy.
Source: The New York Times
http://www.inopressa.ru/article/13Oct2016/nytimes/weapon.html
