Updated 8:55 p.m. Moscow Time
KALININGRAD, October 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will put a recently-built early warning radar station in the Kaliningrad Region on full combat duty in December 2014, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said Wednesday.
The Voronezh-DM class radar has successfully completed a five-month testing phase, Borisov told reporters following an inspection tour of the station deployed in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
The Russian deputy defense chief said the radar's unique technical and tactical characteristics made it unparalleled to other systems of the kind.
"With its technical characteristics, this radar station is at least on par with all foreign counterparts, while such qualities as precision make it stand out," Borisov told journalists.
The radar covers almost all of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, has a range of 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) and can simultaneously track up to 500 targets.
This came four months after the United States announced in May the opening of a Patriot missile base in northern Poland, just 80 km (50 miles) from the Kaliningrad border, a move which drew much criticism from Moscow.
The Russian Defense Ministry said last week it planned to finish the construction of several new anti-missile radars within five years to cover the entire Russian territory. According to reports, new Voronezh-class radar stations will be located in east Siberia's Krasnoyarsk Territory, in south Siberia's Altai Republic and in the Orenburg Region in South Urals.
