340th Radio-Technical Regiment
Unit Identification
The 340th Radio-Technical Regiment (Russian: 340-y radiotekhnicheskiy polk) is a formation of the Radio-Technical Troops (RTV) within the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS). The administrative identifier provided is military unit 40278, with the regiment headquarters referenced under the same identifier. Radio-Technical Troops are responsible for continuous radar surveillance and the generation of the recognized air picture within assigned sectors of the national air and air-defense network.
Mission and Role
Radio-Technical regiments provide early warning and continuous detection, tracking, and identification of airborne objects, including fixed-wing aircraft, rotary-wing aircraft, cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. They form and maintain the radar air picture, support fighter vectoring when tasked, and deliver target tracks and identification data to air-defense command posts and surface-to-air missile (SAM) units (e.g., S-300 and S-400 formations). They also contribute to civil-military coordination of airspace control in accordance with Russian air-defense procedures.
Organizational Structure
A typical RTV regiment comprises a regimental headquarters, several radio-technical battalions, and multiple separate radio-technical companies and radar posts that operate a mix of fixed-site and mobile radars. These elements are distributed across a wide area to provide overlapping coverage at various altitudes. The regiment maintains combat duty on a 24/7 basis, with duty shifts and technical maintenance cycles to ensure sustained operation of radar assets and communications nodes.
Provided Administrative Designators
The following administrative designators were provided for the unit: military unit 40278 (regiment and HQ), and subordinate designators listed as 40278-3, 40278-4, 40278-5, 40278-7, 40278-8, 40278-9, 40278-10, 40278-11, 40278-13, 40278-14, 40278-15, 40278-16, 40278-17, 40278-18, 40278-19, and 40278-20. In Russian administrative practice, suffixes appended to a base military unit number commonly denote subordinate companies, detachments, or outlying posts. The specific functional roles and locations of each suffix in this list are not confirmed in publicly available authoritative sources.
Command Relationships
Radio-Technical regiments are subordinate to the air and air-defense structure of the VKS and feed their radar picture to higher-echelon air-defense command posts. Their data is integrated into automated control systems used by air-defense divisions and armies. While the 340th Regiment’s exact higher headquarters is not identified in the provided data and is not confirmed in open sources here, RTV regiments routinely operate within the chain of the VKS Air and Air Defense Armies responsible for regional airspace control.
C2 and Data Integration
RTV regiments interface with automated command and control systems employed across Russian air defense, including families such as Baikal-1M, Senezh-M1, and Fundament (various iterations), as well as legacy systems in some areas. These systems perform track correlation, identification, and distribution of the recognized air picture to fighter aviation and SAM brigades and regiments. Specific C2 equipment allocations for the 340th Regiment are not publicly confirmed.
Sensor and Radar Systems (Generic to RTV Service)
Russian Radio-Technical Troops field a range of fixed and mobile radars. Publicly reported types in RTV service include VHF and multiband long-range systems such as Nebo-M (55Zh6M) with advertised long-range detection capability (published figures up to several hundred kilometers), Nebo-U (55Zh6U) VHF long-range radar, Protivnik-GE (59N6E) with an advertised range up to roughly 400 km for aerodynamic targets, all-altitude detectors such as 96L6/96L6E (advertised up to about 300 km), low-altitude coverage radars such as Podlet-K1 (48Ya6-K1; advertised up to around 300 km), and legacy sets like 35D6/36D6 (Tin Shield), P-18 family VHF radars, and 5N66M/76N6 low-altitude detectors. The exact inventory at the 340th Regiment is not confirmed in open sources and should not be inferred from the generic RTV inventory.
Infrastructure and Site Characteristics
RTV regimental infrastructure typically includes a headquarters location with command and maintenance facilities, plus multiple radar posts featuring masts or towers (including 40V6-series towers at some fixed sites), equipment shelters, independent and grid power sources, and secured communications links (often fiber-optic, with radio relay as redundancy). Outlying posts are generally hardened for weather and security and are positioned to optimize line-of-sight and low-altitude coverage. Specific site coordinates or facility layouts for the 340th Regiment are not confirmed in publicly available sources.
Operational Employment and Coverage
Regimental coverage is achieved by layering fixed and mobile radars with overlapping sectors to create a persistent radar field across the assigned region, including measures to mitigate terrain masking at low altitudes. Data from dispersed posts is fused at regimental and higher-echelon command posts to form a coherent recognized air picture and support air-defense engagements. The provided list of subordinate designators indicates a multi-node configuration consistent with a regiment-level radar network; however, precise sector responsibilities and post locations are not publicly documented here.
Security and OPSEC Considerations
Detailed information on the current operational status, deployment patterns, personnel strength, exact site locations, and equipment holdings of military unit 40278 and its subordinate elements is generally restricted. If such details are not present in official public releases or reputable open publications, they are not publicly available and cannot be provided.
Observations on the Provided Subunit List
The enumerated subordinate identifiers under military unit 40278 include the HQ reference and suffixes -3, -4, -5, -7, -8, -9, -10, -11, -13, -14, -15, -16, -17, -18, -19, and -20. This pattern is consistent with multiple subordinate companies or posts administratively tied to the regiment. Numbers such as -6 and -12 are not present in the provided list; no conclusion should be drawn from absent numbers without corroborating documentation.
Information Gaps and Validation Requirements
To fully characterize the 340th Radio-Technical Regiment’s sites and capabilities, the following would require confirmation from authoritative open sources: geographic locations for military unit 40278 and each subordinate suffix, current radar and C2 equipment holdings by site, higher-echelon command alignment, and recent modernization status. In the absence of such publicly verified details, only generic RTV roles, structures, and equipment families can be stated with confidence.