Near Gvardeysk in the Kaliningrad Oblast, an over-the-horizon radar is being built that can detect aircraft and missiles at distances of up to approx. 3,000 km, according to a report by the Finnish company ICEYE, which the German daily “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” wrote about on October 19. Satellite images also show new military facilities in Karelia and Belarus.
According to “FAZ”, the complex near Gvardeysk consists of three rows of antennas arranged in a star shape, and the site is secured with a double fence. The ICEYE report is based on previously unpublished satellite images. The company uses satellites with SAR radars, which capture images also at night and through cloud cover.
Radar with a range of up to 3,000 km
An over-the-horizon (OTH) radar detects targets far beyond the horizon limit of a conventional radar. As the German press reports, citing ICEYE, the installation near Gvardeysk is to cover objects at distances of approx. 900 to 3,000 km, including Germany, France and the United Kingdom.
According to ICEYE, the Kaliningrad Oblast is gaining importance for Russia as a center for reconnaissance and electronic jamming. “FAZ” notes that there are more than 20 such facilities there, including a second antenna installation near Chernyakhovsk.
Newsweek previously reported on the construction in this area, citing an analytical project by Tochnyi. According to it, the system is the 29B6 “Kontejner” radar, and satellite images showed the expansion of antennas between March 2023 and August 2025. The International Crisis Group also indicated that Russia plans such a system with a range of up to 3,000 km in Kaliningrad. The new report therefore describes another stage of the same construction, rather than entirely new information.
Karelia, Belarus, Chkalovsk
The report also describes the construction of barracks, warehouses and training centers in Karelia and in the Leningrad Military District. North of Petrozavodsk, an equipment depot is being rebuilt, and in the Slutsk area of Belarus a large ammunition complex is being built. At the Chkalovsk naval aviation base in the Kaliningrad Oblast, shelters for combat aircraft have been built.
Shipments to Syria and Libya
ICEYE also describes Russian maritime shipments. The cargo ship “Sparta”, which is under sanctions, sailed between August 16 and October 5 from Baltiysk to the Syrian port of Tartus and back. It declared Port Said as its destination, but near Gibraltar it switched off its AIS identification system and headed for Syria. According to the company, four similar voyages to Syria or Libya were completed this year, and another was underway.
What it means
The Kaliningrad Oblast lies right on the border with Poland, so the expansion of Russian reconnaissance directly concerns NATO’s eastern flank. A radar of this range is not a weapon, but a tool for early warning and tracking air traffic. For readers in Poland, no direct recommendations or warnings from the authorities follow from this. At the time of publication, we had not seen official comments on the ICEYE report from NATO, the Polish Ministry of National Defence or Moscow. We covered the broader context of tensions in our article on the ceasefire in the Ukraine–Russia conflict.
Komentarze