Monitoring Desk
JERUSALEM: Estonia purchases Blue Spear anti-ship missiles from Israel. They are intended for the coastal missile systems of the Estonian Navy, are a version of the Israeli Gabriel missile and will be aimed at Kaliningrad. “Gazeta.Ru” understood what the danger of Blue Spear is.
Russia’s “weak spot” was found in Estonia
The contract for the purchase of Blue Spear missiles was signed between the State Defense Investment Center of the Estonian Ministry of Defense and the Israeli-Singaporean company Proteus Advanced Systems Pte. Ltd.
“Estonia is going to target missiles at Russia’s key weakness. Launched from Estonia, the Blue Spear rocket can fly over the entire Gulf of Finland, part of the Baltic Sea that connects St. Petersburg with Kaliningrad. The Blue Spear is not just an anti-ship missile. It also has a latent ground attack capability, ”said US military expert David Ax in an article for Forbes .
Missile deliveries to Estonia will begin after 2026. The cost of the contract and the number of purchased systems are classified. At the same time, according to the Israeli portal Globes, which cites its own sources, the initial cost of the contract was about 150 million shekels (this is approximately $ 46.3 million), but its expansion is expected in the future.
Earlier, the Estonian Defense Minister announced that a total budget of more than one hundred million euros was envisaged for the development of coastal defense.
“The chosen weapon system will become the cornerstone of Estonian naval defense for decades to come. The Estonian Navy will be able to make a significant contribution to both national and regional and collective defense, “Forbes quotes the words of the commander of the Estonian Navy, Juri Saska.
According to Konstanin Sivkov, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, the Blue Spear missiles are dangerous only in case of mass use.
“If Estonia is supplied with more than two or three battalions of these missiles, then Russia will have to take special measures to neutralize these threats. If the salvo is small, such missiles can be repelled by our fleet, even single ships, ”he told Gazeta.Ru.
“You need to take a close look at the map”
In the opinion of Viktor Murakhovsky, editor-in-chief of the magazine Arsenal Otchestvo, a member of the expert council of the Military-Industrial Commission , the Blue Spear is a “typical product”.
“This is an Israeli anti-ship missile, an export version. It is the latest version of the Israeli Gabriel missile that has been around for a long time. Israel puts these missiles on its small missile boats, Murakhovsky told Gazeta.Ru . – “Blue Spear” – a tactical missile with an active radar homing head with a launch range of 100-120 km. Launchers can be placed both on ships and be onshore – even on automobile chassis. There is nothing special in it, the product is typical. “
Speaking about the threat of these missiles to the Kaliningrad region, Murakhovsky suggested “carefully look at the map” and measure the distance between Estonia and Kaliningrad. “Kaliningrad, according to the map, is located 500 km far from Estonia, it is outside the range of the Blue Spear missiles,” he said.
Murakhovsky stressed that it is impossible to consider the territories of Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg “a weak point of Russia”. Air defense systems are located in these areas, which are included both in the structure of the Aerospace Forces and in the structure of the ground forces, coastal forces and marines of the Russian Navy. Also, interspecific universal electronic warfare stations are based here.
In addition, there are coastal tactical missile systems of the “Blue Spear” type, but there are also much more long-range missile systems “Bastion” with the “Onyx” missile, the expert said.
“In the operational areas adjacent to the coast of the Baltic Sea, naval ships are on alert, there are Iskander-M attack missile-tactical complexes, the firing range of which is 500 km – the distance from Kaliningrad to Estonia. Estonia could just as well have purchased a pistol with one cartridge from Israel, ”Murakhovsky said.
Corrupt subtext of Israeli “copies”
According to the associate professor of the Department of Political Science and Sociology of the PRUE. Plekhanov, military political scientist Alexander Perendzhiev, the purchase of the Blue Spear by Estonia is not military, but political.
“There is a strange opinion in Estonia that NATO will not help it in the event of a conflict with Russia. Therefore, Estonian military leaders try to defend themselves on their own. But this is a frivolous and not all explanatory point. It is highly likely that when buying these missiles, Estonian officials received their financial benefit by turning a contract for the purchase of weapons, ostensibly to strengthen the army amid talk of a Russian threat. This is a political statement with corruption overtones, ”the expert said.
He noted that the “Blue Spear” is costly in terms of operation.
“These missiles need to be stored somewhere, maintained in combat readiness, and operated. Estonia has no such opportunity. Therefore, they will not stay with her for a long time, the Estonians will get rid of them. The most they can do is demonstrate their power during the exercise. The point is in this, and not in attack or defense, ” Perendzhiev said .
At the same time, according to him, the main problem of small states that constantly declare about the Russian threat is the lack of professionalism in handling military equipment. “The main thing is that Estonia does not shoot this rocket at itself,” Perendzhiev sums up.
Courtesy: (gazeta.ru)
