Russian strategic radio installation in Belarus

Russian strategic radio installation in Belarus

by Ox Populi

Some photo amateur has posted amazing photos of the Russian military base (codename “Antey”) near Vilejka, Belarus: 18 radio towers, incredibly thin and tall — each about 305 m (1000 ft) tall, right in the middle of the forest, upholding a net of steel cords (the net alone weighs around 900 tons) which constitute the giant antenna. The base is used to transmit ultra-wide band radio dispatches to the Russian submarines on duty around the globe. It was built in the 1960s and used to house a lot of navy personnel as well as the radio operators, but now the navy is mostly gone, only a few people from the radio crew are left there. This exact base was the point of controversy last year, when Lukashenka proclaimed that the rising Russian natural gas prices should be offset by charging Russia for their use of military objects in Belarus. Russia, in essence, doesn’t have any recourse, as they do not have the facilities needed for communicating with their underwater fleet in the Baltic sea, although there are rumors that a similar installation is being contructed on Russian territory now.

For comparison, the Eiffel tower is only 300 m tall, a few meters lower than any of these towers.

There is also a wonderful satellite shot on Google maps (see below).

Now, that’s a bunch of intelligence photos which would’ve gotten me in jail 20 years ago, but they’re easy to get after 30 seconds of googling now