The Zvezda TV channel produced a documentary film “Matua Island” about the research expedition of the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Ministry of Defense. Experts went to the island back in 2016 and spent many months collecting materials about its natural, historical and cultural heritage. Why exactly Matua interested the Russian Geographical Society and what secrets the island keeps - in the material “360”.
From no-man's island to mothballed military base
Matua Island is part of the middle group of the Great Kuril Ridge and belongs to Sakhalin region. However, this was not always the case. The original population of Matua is considered to be the Ainu - ancient people Japanese Islands. In his language, the island is called the “hellmouth.”
For a long time, Matua existed on its own, and only in the 17th century did the first expeditions set off to the Kuril Islands. The Japanese, Russians and Dutch visited there and even claimed the land as the property of their East India Company.
By 1736, the Ainu converted to Orthodoxy and became Russian subjects, paying the residents of Kamchatka yasak - a tax in kind in the form of furs, livestock and other items. Russian Cossacks regularly visited the island, and the first scientific expedition arrived on Matua in 1813. The island's population has always been small: in 1831, only 15 inhabitants were counted on Matua, although at that time the census only counted adult men. In 1855, the Russian Empire officially received the right to the island, but 20 years later Matua found itself under Japanese rule - such was the price for Sakhalin.
Shortly before World War II, the island became the main stronghold of the Kuril chain. A fort with anti-tank ditches, underground tunnels and trenches appeared on Matua. An underground residence in the hill was created for the officers. After the start of the war, Nazi Germany supplied fuel to Matua. The island has become one of the key naval bases Japan. In August 1945, a garrison of 7.5 thousand people capitulated without firing a shot. Matua passed to the Soviet Union.
Until 1991, there was a military unit on the island. During this time, not only historians, but also politicians were interested in Matua. US President Harry Truman, immediately after the end of World War II, offered Joseph Stalin to cede the island for a US naval base. Then the leader of the USSR, either jokingly or seriously, agreed to exchange Matua for one of the Aleutian Islands. The question is closed.
The Russian border outpost was located on Matua until 2000. Then the entire naval infrastructure of the island was mothballed, and the inhabitants left it. Matua is now uninhabited. The small island, 11 kilometers long and just over six kilometers wide, still holds many secrets. Members of the Russian Geographical Society and employees of the Russian Ministry of Defense went to uncover them.
Last September, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Sergei Avakyants, told reporters about the results of the first expedition to Matua. It started in April and lasted almost six months. The expedition was attended by the Minister of Defense and President of the Russian Geographical Society Sergei Shoigu.
Research on Matua took place for the first time since 1813. According to Avakyants, many underground structures were discovered on the island. Some of them definitely belonged to the fort, but the purpose of the rest has not yet been determined.
Initially there was an assumption that these were warehouses, but everything was removed from them. And if these were warehouses, then any material traces would remain. Moreover, it was discovered that a high-voltage cable was connected to these premises, and the power supply system made it possible to supply up to 3 thousand volts there. Naturally, this is excess voltage for warehouse premises. But it is obvious that some work was carried out in these structures
Sergey Avakyants.
Among the unusual finds is a high-voltage cable on the slope of the Sarychev volcano. There are remains nearby old road, which leads to the crater of the volcano. At the same time, from a helicopter, members of the expedition noticed the entrances to underground structures. What exactly is in the thickness of the volcano is still unknown. Experts were also interested in another question: why the garrison surrendered without a fight in August 1945. This behavior is not typical for Japanese soldiers, which indicates a well-thought-out plan. “We concluded that the garrison fulfilled its main task - it removed all traces and all facts that could lead to the disclosure of the true nature of activities on this island,” the admiral explained.
Photo: RIA Novosti / Roman Denisov
Last year, members of the expedition decided to study the collected materials, and a few months later return to Matua to reveal other secrets of the island. What else will surprise Russians with a small piece of land that went from no-man's land to a secret Japanese fort, time will tell.
Matua is a small island located in the very center of the Kuril ridge. During the Great Patriotic War the Japanese turned it into impregnable fortress, planning to use it as a springboard in case of war with the USSR.
The Russian Ministry of Defense is taking unprecedented measures to develop military infrastructure in Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. An expedition of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) began engineering work to study fortifications on the Kuril island of Matua. This was announced by the head of the press service of the Eastern Military District, Colonel Alexander Gordeev.
“On the slopes of the hills and at the foot of the Sarychev volcano, the liberation of posterns (underground corridors for communication between fortifications, fortresses or strongholds of fortified areas) and warehouses from rubble has begun,” Gordeev said. -Five groups of search engines “carry out excavation work using a bulldozer, excavator and other special equipment.”
According to the participants of the military-historical expedition, conducting scientific research will help find answers to many questions and “dispel the aura of mystery of the island of Matua.” Before starting work, air samples are taken from each fortification structure and carefully analyzed in the laboratory for the presence of toxic substances.
Until the end of World War II, Japan was actively developing these islands, including the mysterious island of Matua, located in the center of the Kuril ridge. Japan mined some valuable minerals on this island. After the end of World War II, Truman even approached Stalin with a request to transfer the island of Matua to the United States. We didn’t give away the island, but for some reason we don’t use its dungeons themselves.
During World War II, Allied aircraft, which bombed everything that belonged to Japan in the Pacific Ocean, bypassed Magua. And when the war ended, President Truman turned to Stalin with an unexpected request to give the United States only one of the islands in the center of the Kuril Islands, occupied by Soviet troops. With what small island ok Matua attracted the President of America so much?
Matua is a small island located in the very center of the Kuril ridge. During the Great Patriotic War, the Japanese turned it into an impregnable fortress, planning to use it as a springboard in case of war with the USSR. The war did begin, but in 1945, 3,811 Japanese soldiers and officers “valiantly” surrendered to 40 Soviet border guards.
The island, which went to the USSR, was dug up and down with ditches, trenches and artificial caves. Numerous pillboxes and hangars were built conscientiously. The entire perimeter of the Matua coast was cordoned off by a dense ring of pillboxes made of stone or carved into the rock. They were made so well that members of amateur expeditions who have been studying the island for many years claim that even today the pillboxes could be used for their intended purpose. Moreover, their arrangement was not limited to just preparing a point for firing. Each such position had an extensive network underground passages, also carved into the rock.
The island's airfield was constructed even more carefully. It is located so well and made so technically competent that planes could take off and land in winds of any strength and direction. Japanese engineers also provided an “anti-snow” design. Pipes were laid under the concrete covering, into which hot water from thermal springs. So icing runway Japanese pilots were not in danger, and planes could take off and land in both winter and summer.
In one of the coastal rocks, the hardworking Japanese carved out a huge cave where a submarine could easily hide. Nearby was the underground residence of the garrison command, camouflaged in one of the surrounding hills. Its walls were neatly lined with stone, and there is a swimming pool and an underground bathhouse nearby.
One of the secrets of the island is the disappearance of all military equipment. Despite extensive searches that have been going on since 1945, nothing has been found on the island. Moreover, there is an amazing, downright mystical pattern - people who tried to search, died in fires, which often happened on the island, and fell into avalanches.
In the late 1990s, the deputy head of the border post who led the search died in an accident. And when they tried to restore the destroyed communications, the volcano located in the center of the island suddenly woke up. The eruption occurred with such force that huge boulders flying out of the crater knocked down birds hovering hundreds of meters from the crater!
Here is an opinion about the unsolved mysteries of the island of Matua by enthusiastic researcher Evgeniy Vereshchagi: “There is an extraordinary hill on Matua more than 120 meters high and 500 meters in diameter.
Nature does not like such regular forms. This involuntarily leads one to think that this entire thing was made by human hands. This is an artificial hill that served as a camouflaged hangar for aircraft. A very wide man-made depression, overgrown with trees and bushes, clearly stands out on its slope. Probably, there was a gate to the hangar here, which was first blown up and then covered with the ash of an erupting volcano.
In addition, hundreds of rusty fuel barrels are scattered on the island - mostly German, and absolutely intact and with fuel from the times of the fascist Third Reich. In translation, the markings on them read “Wehrmacht fuel, 200 liters.” And the dates - 1939, 1943 - right up to the victorious year of 1945.
So, having gone around Earth, Hitler's allied submarines moored at Matua and delivered cargo!?
By the way, about the volcano. There were many questions about where the military equipment disappeared, with which, judging by the underground structures, the island-fortress was literally stuffed. One of the participants in the amateur expeditions made a seemingly incredible assumption: “Perhaps the Japanese dumped all their ammunition into the mouth of the volcano, and then blew it up, causing powerful eruption. This version, at first glance, sounds like science fiction. But a road was built up the cone of the volcano, where traces of tracked vehicles can still be discerned decades later. One can only guess what the Japanese carried along it.”
But all these striking grandiose structures are only the outer, visible part of the Japanese secret underground fortress. More than half a century has passed since the end of World War II, but no one has managed to unravel the secrets of the dungeons.
The Japanese, citing the secrecy of this information, stubbornly did not respond to requests from first Soviet and then Russian researchers of the island of Matua. It was also impossible to understand the strange interest in the island of the American president.
What does the Kuril Island hide in its depths? What if the death of military explorers of the island, and the volcano awakening at the wrong time, and the American president’s interest in Matua, and the Japanese refusal to provide materials are not a random chain of events? Maybe in the secret, as yet undiscovered dungeons of the fortress island, there are hidden not rusted military equipment that no one needs today, but secret laboratories that developed secret weapons that were never used during the war?
At dawn on August 12, 1945, three days before Japan announced its surrender, a deafening explosion was heard in the Sea of Japan, not far from the Korean Peninsula. A fireball approximately 1000 meters in diameter rose into the sky. Following him, a giant mushroom cloud appeared. According to American expert Charles Stone, Japan's first and last atomic bomb was detonated here, and the power of the explosion was approximately the same as that of the American bombs detonated a few days earlier over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
C. Stone's statement that during World War II Japan worked to create an atomic bomb and achieved success was met with great doubts by many US scientists. Military historian John Dower treated this information more cautiously.
According to this famous scientist, it is impossible to completely exclude the possibility that at dawn on August 12, 1945, Japan’s first and last atomic bomb was detonated in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Korea. Evidence of this can be seen in the huge secret military complex of Hungnam, located on the territory of modern North Korea. It was powerful enough and equipped with everything necessary to produce an atomic bomb.
The plausibility of Charles Stone's unexpected hypothesis is confirmed by the research of former American intelligence officer Theodore McNally. At the end of World War II, he served on the analytical intelligence staff of the Allied commander in the Pacific, General MacArthur.
In his article, McNally writes that American intelligence had reliable information about a large Japanese nuclear center in the Korean city of Hungnam, but kept information about this facility secret from the USSR. Moreover, on the morning of August 14, 1945 american planes brought to their airfields air samples taken over the Sea of Japan near east coast Korean Peninsula. Processing of the samples obtained gave stunning results. She testified that in the above-mentioned area Sea of Japan On the night of August 12-13, an unknown nuclear device exploded!
If we assume that in underground city On the island-fortress, the development of the most terrible weapon of the 20th century - nuclear - actually took place, this provides an answer to many questions that perplex the organizers of amateur research expeditions.
Why did President Truman, turning to Stalin, ask to transfer the island of Matua to the United States?
Even before the end of World War II, the Americans began to prepare for an armed conflict with the USSR. After the declassification of materials about the Second World War, a folder with the inscription “Unthinkable Operation” was found in a British archive. Indeed, no one could have imagined such an operation! The date on the document is May 22, 1945. Consequently, the development of the operation began even before the end of the war. The document outlined in the most detailed way the plan... for a massive strike against Soviet troops!
The main trump card in a military clash could be nuclear weapons, available only to the United States. Soviet tank divisions that went through the Second world war, were located in the center of Europe. If Stalin had received, in addition to his superiority in ground forces, nuclear weapons created by Japanese scientists, then in the event of a military clash, the outcome of the war would have been a foregone conclusion and Europe would have become completely socialist.
Why do the Japanese, citing the secrecy of information, stubbornly refuse to respond to requests from first Soviet and then Russian researchers on the island of Matua?
But what should they do?
If an underground secret center were discovered on the island of Matua in which nuclear weapons were developed, and not only developed, but also the technology for their production was brought to practical implementation, then this would lead to a reassessment of the events of World War II. The atomic bombing of Japanese cities would have been justified: American pilots were simply ahead of future Japanese atomic raids. Demands for the return of the Southern Kuril Islands could be seen as a desire to continue work on creating secret weapons, which stopped as a result of the defeat of Japan.
And that's it mysterious island, The Russian Pacific Fleet has launched unprecedented research.
A representative of the Eastern Military District recalled that “mobile airfield complexes have already been deployed on the island to support flights aircraft" The drainage system has been cleared and preparations for landing helicopters of any type have been completed.
The personnel of the military-historical expedition continue to actively work in Dvoynaya Bay in order to “prepare the coastal section of the island for a large landing ship to approach the shore in a point-to-point manner for loading equipment and materiel,” Gordeev said.
As previously reported, 200 members of the expedition of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian Geographical Society, the Eastern Military District and the Pacific Fleet under the leadership of Deputy Commander of the Pacific Fleet Vice Admiral Andrei Ryabukhin on six ships and vessels left Vladivostok on May 7 and arrived on the island of Matua on May 14.
A detachment of the Pacific Fleet, including a large landing ship"Admiral Nevelskoy", the keel vessel KIL-168 and the rescue tug "SB-522", delivered members of the joint expedition of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Geographical Society, as well as more than 30 units of various equipment, to the Kuril Island of Matua.
Matua Island is located in the middle part of the Kuril ridge and is significantly removed from the populated areas of Sakhalin and Kamchatka. The size of the island is 11 kilometers long and 6 and a half wide. It is characterized by an abnormally cold climate with high rainfall. Matua has one of the most active active volcanoes region - Sarycheva volcano. A powerful layer of historical and cultural heritage has been preserved here, which is divided into Ainu, Japanese and Russian. In addition, on Matua there is the northernmost point of distribution of Corded Ware - the Neolithic archaeological culture "Jōmon".
This year, the scientific composition of the expedition has expanded significantly. Hydrogeologists, volcanologists, hydrobiologists, landscape scientists, soil scientists, submariners, searchers and archaeologists from Vladivostok and Moscow, Kamchatka and Sakhalin will work on the island of Matua. The Expeditionary Center of the Ministry of Defense is taking part in the project Russian Federation, Russian Geographical Society and personnel of the Pacific Fleet.
During the work, materials will be collected to prepare an atlas identifying the marine life of the waters of the island of Matua and neighboring islands, as well as video recording of the bottom topography at dive sites will be carried out to analyze hydrographic characteristics.
The activity of the Sarychev Peak volcano over the past 100 thousand years will be reconstructed, and the level of its modern activity will be determined. This is necessary to assess the volcanic hazard of the territory and formulate a long-term forecast.
In addition, work will continue to search and study objects of historical military equipment and fortifications from the Second World War. Archaeological work to identify and study historical and cultural monuments of various eras, including the Ainu era, will be developed.
Based on the results of the 2017 expedition, materials will be prepared on the prospects for further development of the island: maps of dangerous natural phenomena, an analysis of alternative energy sources, the chemical composition of natural waters, and potential soil fertility was carried out.
In 2016, the Russian Geographical Society, together with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, organized an expedition to Matua for the first time. Its goal was to study artifacts of the Second World War and compile a historical and geographical portrait of the island.
The second expedition of the Russian Ministry of Defense and the Russian Geographical Society to the Matua island of the Kuril ridge landed today in Aina and Dvoynaya bays. A detachment of ships of the Pacific Fleet delivered more than 100 military personnel and civilian specialists and 30 pieces of equipment here.
Earlier, the Ministry of Defense announced plans to create a base for Pacific Fleet ships on Matua and restore the airfield. Head of the Russian Military Department Sergei Shoigu noted: “We intend to restore, and not only restore, but also actively exploit this island.”
From June to September, the expedition center of the Ministry of Defense, the Russian Geographical Society and military sailors plan to map the area, explore the Sarychev Peak volcano, hydrography and topography of the coastal bottom, and compile an atlas of marine life in the adjacent water area. Hydrogeologists, volcanologists, hydrobiologists, soil scientists, submariners, searchers and archaeologists will work on Matua. Experts will analyze the chemical composition of natural waters and potential soil fertility. This is an area of increased seismic activity, and volcanologists intend to reconstruct the activity of the Sarychev Peak volcano over the past 100 thousand years in order to assess the volcanic danger of the territory in the future.
© Photo: Russian Geographical Society/Andrey Gorban
© Photo: Russian Geographical Society/Andrey Gorban
Lost in the ocean, Matua, with an area of only 52 square kilometers, is not without reason arousing such keen interest.
Strategic importance
The Navy is studying the possibility of creating a base for ships in the Kuril Islands. Long-range aviation also has its own interest. Two expeditions to Matua are actually a full cycle of design and survey work that must be completed on the eve of large-scale construction of a new naval base, or more precisely, a logistics support point for the Pacific Fleet.
The first expedition explored Matua in May-July 2016. Specialists conducted radiation and chemical reconnaissance, studied fortifications and other historical sites, performed more than a thousand laboratory studies, and made hundreds of measurements of the external environment, including the hydrography of bays and bays.
Matua is an island of the middle group of the Great Ridge of the Kuril Islands (in a straight line to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - 670 kilometers, to the Japanese Hokkaido - 740 kilometers). Administratively. During World War II it was one of the largest Japanese naval bases. The indigenous inhabitants of the island were hunters - the Ainu; in 1875 they were replaced by Japanese soldiers. In 1945, Soviet border guards settled on the island, and later air defense units. In 2000, military facilities on Matua were mothballed, and the island became uninhabited for 15 years.
The island resembles a fortress in the middle of the ocean. Matua is reliably protected by inaccessible cliffs and high banks. Not bad Japanese pillboxes, paved roads, three runways of a military airfield, as well as spacious underground structures of unknown purpose.
In the southwestern part of Matua there is a convenient and relatively safe strait for basing ships, protected from the winds by the small island of Toporkovy. It was here that the Japanese roadsteads and piers were located. Since the 1930s, the island served the Japanese as a springboard for further expansion towards Kamchatka.
In August 1945, Soviet paratroopers discovered practically unarmed Japanese on Matua: the 3,800 surrendered soldiers and officers had only 2,000 rifles, and the pilots, sailors and artillerymen simply disappeared (the garrison numbered 7.5 thousand military personnel). For comparison: on Shumshu Island, Soviet troops captured more than 60 Japanese tanks. From interrogations of the commander of the northern group, General Tsumi Fusaki, it is known that the Matua garrison was not subordinate to him and was controlled directly from headquarters in Hokkaido. The island had a special status and keeps many secrets to this day.
New fortress
Russia borders on the sea with 12 countries, and not all of them are friendly. Until recently, our Pacific neighbors, the United States, practiced military-political “containment” of Russia. And Japan claims four Russian islands— Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai. And it seems quite logical to strengthen the Far Eastern borders, where since 2015 a unified coastal defense system has been created, necessary to control the strait zones of the Kuril Islands and the Bering Strait, cover fleet deployment routes and increase the combat stability of naval strategic nuclear forces. The steel Kuril ridge is a forced measure, but very effective.
The Kuril Islands are forming. Today, the Sea of Okhotsk is almost completely covered by the DBK (it is logical to assume the presence of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems on the Kuril Islands line). New missile capabilities make it possible to create specially protected sea areas (anti-access/area-denial), most favorable for SSBN combat patrols - four thousand miles from San Francisco and the positions of American ground-based strategic forces in the states of Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota .
The Kuril Islands and Kamchatka must turn into indestructible sea fortress Russia. And to realize this goal, the small island of Matui is of great importance.
The other day on a tiny desert island Matua of the Kuril ridge (an area of about 52 square kilometers) the second expedition of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation began work. An impressive detachment of warships and vessels under the command of Deputy Commander of the Pacific Fleet, Vice Admiral Andrei Ryabukhin. The detachment includes the Admiral Nevelskoy BDK, the KIL-168 killer and the SB-522 rescue tug. On board there are about a hundred researchers and 30 pieces of engineering equipment to support various works.
Exactly a year ago, the first such expedition on the same “Admiral Nevelskoy” already visited Matua. And it was also led by Vice Admiral Ryabukhin. Specialists conducted more than 1,000 laboratory studies on physical, chemical and biological indicators, made more than 200 measurements of the external environment, and conducted radiation and chemical reconnaissance. Divers examined both tiny bays of this piece of land - Ainu (maximum depths up to 25 meters) and Yamato (depths up to 9 meters). During the Second World War, it was through them that the 7,000-strong Japanese garrison on Matua, where the largest and well-equipped military base of the imperial army was located, was supplied. Most of its defensive structures were carved into the surrounding rocks and served as reliable shelter for personnel and military supplies.
But the main thing on the island was not the numerous artillery pillboxes and underground tunnels. Of primary importance was the largest military airfield at that time, which allowed the Japanese from these places to control a vast part of the Pacific Ocean from the air and Sea of Okhotsk, as well as most of the islands of the Kuril chain. Three concrete runways, each 1200 meters long, concreted and heated by underground thermal springs, made the airfield almost all-weather. However, in 1945, the Japanese 41st separate mixed regiment defending here (numbering three thousand soldiers and officers, the rest of the garrison had already been evacuated by that time) surrendered to the Soviet paratroopers without firing a single shot.
Despite the fact that after World War II the island remained practically deserted and was hardly used by the Soviet authorities, as it turned out, that airfield is still in good condition today. In any case, Russian military helicopters have been landing on it since the summer of 2016. Is the island's airfield capable of receiving aircraft after minor restoration work? And if so, what types? This was also found out last year by the expedition of Vice Admiral Ryabukhin.
The purpose of such unprecedented activity of Far Eastern sailors is no secret. It was first announced in May 2016 at the military council of the Eastern Military District Colonel General Sergei Surovikin: the possibility of placing a new Pacific Fleet base on the island is being studied. Moreover, on June 29, when the work of the first expedition was still in full swing, an unnamed source in the Russian Ministry of Defense told RIA Novosti that construction of base facilities on Matua will begin at a breakneck pace - before the end of 2016. However, contrary to these plans, nothing is happening there yet. Why?
We know of at least one unexpected problem that the Pacific Fleet command faced: fresh water. When the Japanese garrison was stationed here, there was clearly plenty of water on Matua. This is evidenced by the huge concrete tanks preserved in the rocks. As well as an extensive network of ceramic pipes, which stretches from them to the defensive structures. So far, the pipes are, of course, empty. To date, our engineers have not figured out how to refill the ingenious Japanese water supply system again. According to Vice Admiral Ryabukhin, “we still do not understand exactly what was flowing into where and where it was flowing out from.” In the meantime, this is a secret, construction on Matua cannot begin. Tankers and Aquarian ships cannot satisfy its needs for life-giving moisture.
But all these, apparently, are temporary difficulties and new base Our fleet will someday receive on this island. It seems important to try to understand why we need it? And what kind of base will this be?
What can be said for sure today is that there can only be temporary berths there for warships and auxiliary vessels. The reasons are not only that the bays of Ainu and Yamato are too open by nature and are not sufficiently protected from ocean winds and storms. Although in the sailing directions they are indicated as possible anchorages.
The main problem for creating a full-fledged ship-based point, obviously, is active volcano on Matua Sarychev with a height of 1446 meters. Its strong eruptions have occurred four times over the past century, in 1928, 1930, 1946, 1976, and one eruption occurred in 2009. Then two streams of hot lava slid into the ocean, froze and increased the area of the island by one and a half square kilometers. It is not for nothing that in the language of the Ainu people who once lived in these parts, Matua means “small burning bay.”
But the volcano is not the only problem for Matua. This is an area of high seismic activity. Regular powerful earthquakes cause destructive tsunamis. For example, the most powerful Simushir earthquake in the history of the modern Kuril Islands, which occurred on November 15, 2006, hit the island giant wave, in some places reaching a height of 20 meters. Which is apparently comparable to the consequences of a nearby underwater nuclear explosion. What would be left in this case from the piers and our ships on Matua?
Thus, we are unlikely to build a new Pacific Fleet ship base on Matua. Then why the fuss? Shall we restore the military airfield? Taking into account the three wonderful runways built by the Japanese, their return to life obviously will not require much effort. But the length of each, as was said, is 1200 meters, the width is 80 meters. This is more than enough to land even a helicopter regiment. For fighters such as Su-27, Su-35 and MiG-29 - too. But, let’s say, the Tu-22M3 will not be enough for heavy bombers; the runways will have to be almost doubled. But it is precisely in the landing of Russian Long-Range Aviation here that most Russian military experts see the main meaning of the new military base on Matua. Because in this case the Pacific coast of the United States will be within range of our heavy bombers. This means that not only Tu-95MS and Tu-160 “strategists” will be able to fly out to patrol the “shtat” lines. The range of potential threats to Americans from Russia will be much wider.
Full of optimism on this score former commander in chief Air Force Russian Army General Pyotr Deinekin: “As for the airfield on Matua, it is currently too small to support heavy aircraft flights. But in the future, everything will be done to ensure that this airfield turns into an air base.”
The only question is, will the terrain allow it? After all, at least one runway for the Tu-22M3 will have to be more than doubled - to 3-3.5 km. With a maximum island length of 11 kilometers and a width of 6.4 kilometers, this could be a problem. Especially when you consider that a significant part of the territory is occupied by the Sarycheva volcano. Surely the expedition of Vice Admiral Ryabukhin is struggling to solve this problem today.
Meanwhile, even if it is not possible to “land” Russian Long-Range Aviation on Matua and the matter is limited only to fighters, there will still be a lot of sense in a new island base. Because the boundaries of our capabilities for air cover of the base of strategic nuclear submarine missile cruisers, including the new Boreys, in Vilyuchinsk (Kamchatka) will also expand considerably.
Indeed, today the task of fighter cover for Kamchatka is assigned mainly to the 865th separate air regiment, which flies MiG-31 interceptors. The regiment is based at the Elizovo airfield near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. And Matua is approximately 700 kilometers southwest of the aircraft stands of the 865th separate regiment. Accordingly, in this direction towards the center of the Pacific Ocean the far limit of potential interception of enemy air attack weapons will be shifted by the same amount. The gain in time and space for us in the event of a surprise attack is more than impressive.
Needless to say, the same thing on Matua will probably be done with anti-ship cruise systems missiles "Bastion", "Ball", as well as anti-aircraft missile systems S-400 "Triumph". Since last year, such weapons have already been deployed in Kamchatka, which immediately caused an understandably sharp reaction in the United States and Japan. There they started talking with concern that Russia was creating another “A2/AD access restriction zone” on the peninsula, as such areas are called in the Pentagon.
Until now, it was believed that we had already created “A2/AD zones” in Kaliningrad, Crimea, near St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Yerevan and in Syrian Tartus. But all this is in the northwestern, western and southwestern directions. Now it’s the turn of the Russian Far East. Overseas strategists have to add Kamchatka to the previous list. However, if we manage to quickly turn the island of Matua into a fortress, even the defense of the Russian nuclear-powered missile cruiser base will become deep in echelon. And it will not be possible to get close to the peninsula with impunity.
