VLADIVOSTOK. Aug 25 (Interfax-AVN) - The first regional air- water-underwater monitoring system has been created in Eastern Russia, Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, Russian Navy commander- in-chief, told reporters in Vladivostok on Monday.
"In accordance with the presidential decree, the system will become fully operational in 2005. We have to finish its aerial component," he said.
According to Kuroyedov, the system will survey the Sea of Japan, the Okhotsk Sea, the Tatar Strait, the Kurile Islands, the Kamchatka region, and the Chukotka Peninsula. "This is about the entire eastern Russia," he said.
He also said that when the system becomes operational, it would enhance the combat effectiveness of the military force by "more than 50 percent."
He added that the system had been created together by the Defense Ministry, Transportation Ministry, and the State Fishing Committee.
The admiral said that such monitoring subsystems would be created for all strategic areas, and they will eventually merge into a single system for the whole country. "In 2006 we will finish covering all the fleets with monitoring subsystems. No other armed service has this. The monitoring will involve space devices, including civilian-use objects," he said.
This system is unique by its closed real-time operation mode, he emphasized.
The system's operation was shown to Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Monday.