During their retreat, units of the russian army and Bashar al-Assad’s regime forces are abandoning countless pieces of military equipment, which are subsequently captured by the Syrian opposition. These are not only T-90 tanks but even air defense systems and BM-30 Smerch multiple rocket launchers.
Against this backdrop, Ukrainian social media users are suggesting, quite logically at first glance, that Ukraine should negotiate with the Syrian opposition to acquire all these captured trophies. However, if we are to focus on the captured equipment, attention should first be directed to the most valuable asset — the rare russian Podlet-K1 (48Ya6-K1) low-altitude surveillance radar system.
Read more: Polish-Made Drones Destroy Rare russian Kasta-2E2, Podlet-K1 and R-330Zh Zhitel Systems in Ukraine (Video Compilation)
WOW: Syrian rebels captured Podlet-K1 (48Ya6-K1) low-altitude surveillance radar at Assad regime's 25th Special Forces Division HQ. pic.twitter.com/v6oO2JBSJO— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 4, 2024
The fact that the Syrian opposition captured the russian Podlet-K1 radar system as a trophy was reported by the Turkish monitoring resource, Clash Report.
The report provides details, stating that this radar system was located at the base of the 25th Special Forces Brigade of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. One can only speculate how this radar ended up there.
As we can judge from the photo, this radar station was captured in a folded position, suggesting that the russians and/or their Syrian "colleagues" were preparing to evacuate the Podlet-K1. Therefore, even if they intended to, they did not manage to inflict significant damage on this radar system.
It is also important to specify that the Podlet-K1 is designed to work with the S-400 and S-300PMU-2 systems. The declared characteristics of this radar are as follows: it has a target detection range of 10 to 200 kilometers, a target detection altitude of up to 10 kilometers, and can simultaneously detect up to 200 targets. Its deployment/pack-up time is 20 minutes.
By the summer of 2024, according to Oryx’s estimates, russia had lost at least three destroyed and one damaged Podlet-K1 radar systems during the full-scale war against Ukraine. This fact may particularly highlight the rarity of the enemy’s use of such radar systems during combat operations.
It is also significant that, up to this point, no complete Podlet-K1 radar system has fallen into the hands of Ukraine’s Defense Forces as a trophy. There is only a public mention that the remains of a destroyed radar of this type were found by our forces in Chornobaivka during the liberation of the right-bank part of the Kherson region in November 2022.
If we return directly to the topic of Syrian trophies, it is important to understand the following. No matter how attractive all the abandoned columns of russian and Bashar al-Assad’s military equipment may seem, extracting all or even part of them may be extremely difficult due to logistical challenges.
In such conditions, priorities must be set, and the focus should be on hunting for the most valuable samples. In our case, the Podlet-K1 is exactly that, so it is better to concentrate efforts on acquiring this radar system first. Moreover, materials from studying it could later help make missile strikes on russian military targets even more effective.
Read more: russian Forces in Syria Face Decline Amidst Opposition Gains
