In 2016 the crew of a Don-2N radar facility, one of many keeping an eye on the skies over Moscow and the Central Industrial Region, registered nearly a dozen ballistic and space rocket launches, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported, citing the Defense Ministry's press service in Moscow.

Also in 2016, air and missile defense units stationed outside Moscow conducted a series of drills to spot, track and "destroy" hundreds of hypothetical aircraft and missiles.

"There are over 200 radar operators taking up their 'battle stations' every day to secure their designated area," the press service said in a statement.

The Don-2N radar is a large missile defense and early warning passive electronically scanned array radar outside Moscow, and a key part of the Russian anti-ballistic missile system designed for the defense of the capital against ballistic missiles.

The system is run by a supercomputer and has a range of 3,700 km for targets the size of a typical ICBM warhead.

The Don-2N radar is designed to be the control center of the system and can operate autonomously if connection is lost to its command and control center.

The Don-2N radar is used to register launches of space rockets and ballistic missiles from Plesetsk and Baikonur spaceports, ICBM launches from submarines in the Barents and White Seas, the Sea of Okhotsk and also from the Kapustin Yar missile range in southern Russia.

In 2016 Don-2N radars tracked about 250 space targets, over 80 of which were designated as "significant."

Source: Sputnik News