Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė announced plans to purchase radars and mine-clearing equipment, which will be sent to Ukraine by the end of autumn, in addition to more than 5000 domestically produced drones.”During my recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, I announced that in the first weeks of September we will deliver to Kiev the first package of military aid, including a dozen short-range air defence systems, 30 anti-drone missiles and an additional amount of weapons and ammunition,” Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said. “In addition, we are providing financial resources in the amount of EUR 35 million for the purchase of radars and anti-mine systems for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”».1
According to the Israeli website specializing in military issues and arms exports Israeledefense.co.il, the radars purchased by the Lithuanian authorities and intended for Ukraine were manufactured by DRS RADA Technologies Ltd. of Netanya (Israel), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leonardo DRS Inc., Leonardo’s holding company operating in the United States of America in the production of land, naval, air, satellite and intelligence warfare systems.This is the second batch of RADA radars that Lithuania has sent to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the last two years.”Indicates Israeledefense.co.il. “The first batch included at least 16 radar systems and was deployed by Ukraine to detect and track drones and destroy Russian artillery batteries, but no official Israeli source would comment on this information…»2Some of the Italian-Israeli radars in the hands of the kyiv regime were reportedly destroyed by the Russians during the “Lancet” drone strikes, as shown in videos posted by independent Telegram groups.3
On May 29, 2024, Lithuanian National Radio and Television LRT also revealed the purchase by the Vilnius government of a batch of radars manufactured by the Italian-Israeli company DRS RADA Technologies worth 13 million euros.to contribute to the German-led air defense coalition of Ukraine”, as confirmed by Defense Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas.Lithuania’s goal this year is to send four radars to Ukraine that will improve the capabilities of tracking and destroying air targets.“, said Laurynas Kasčiūnas. “We will continue to supply radars in the future because Ukraine needs them, as the Ukrainian authorities themselves explained to us.».4
The radar connection: from Vilnius to kyiv via Tel Aviv
The Lithuanian Defense Ministry did not provide details on the radar model ordered for kyiv in late May, but it is most likely the RADA ieMHR, a three-dimensional tactical system that, according to Israeli designers, would be able to track stealthy targets (those that are poorly visible to radar) and provide operators with information on the position and height of intercepted targets, even in conditions of “active use” of electronic interference. The RADA ieMHR radars have a range of up to 12 km and would allow “Perfect 360° detection of small targets” and of “counter enemy batteries by following the direction of artillery fire».5
This model of DRS radar RADA-Leonardo has been in possession of the Ukrainian armed forces on the anti-Russian war front since at least spring 2023. The first RADA ieMHR systems were delivered to kyiv in early March by a self-proclaimed Lithuanian NGO, “Blue/Yellow” (after the colors of the Ukrainian flag), based in Vilnius.6. Founded in 2014, this non-governmental organization “provides Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers with the necessary supplies to help them fight Russian aggression”, as the “Bleu/Jaune” website states. “We have already provided aid worth more than $50 million: each donation is transformed into drones, helmets, optical systems, vehicles and other tactical equipment.».7
The founder and current chairman of the only Lithuanian NGO is Swedish-born journalist and filmmaker Jonas Öhman,activist for democracy and independence of Lithuania from the Soviet Union”, as he describes himself, but above all the author, screenwriter and producer of a number of controversial documentary films on the “Lithuanian resistance” against the USSR during and after the Second World War. One of them is devoted to the figure of the “partisan” Juozas Luksa. A member of the far-right and anti-Semitic organization LAF (Lithuanian Activist Front), a close collaborator of the Wehrmacht during the Nazi occupation of the Baltic republics in 1940-44, Juozas Luksa later joined the Lithuanian Fighters for Freedom, the “freedom fighters of Lithuania” who, thanks to funding from the CIA and the US Department of Defense, carried out operations against the Red Army in the Baltic countries until their final defeat in the early 1950s.
«Having witnessed the popular student movement’s protests on Maidan Square in 2014 against the corruption of the Ukrainian government that led to a pro-Kremlin government and the subsequent invasion of parts of Ukraine by Russia, Jonas Öhman and other like-minded volunteers founded Blue/Yellow for Ukraine in Lithuania and began providing practical assistance to the Ukrainian regions that had been invaded by Moscow.”, we can still read in the journalist’s autobiography. “Having served in the Swedish army, the possibility of being involved on the front lines was not beyond his reach, and his experience in Ukraine was included in two reports of the US Army War College: “Analysis of Russian Strategy in Eastern Europe, an Appropriate US Response, and the Implications for US Landpower” (2015) and “Assessment on Russian Strategy in Eastern Europe and Recommendations on How to Leverage Landpower to Maintain the Peace (2017)”. Finally, Jonas Öhman prides himself on having collaborated on the “Ukrainian question” with the NATO Parliamentarians’ Assembly and the US Congress; In Washington, he is one of the co-founders of a “sister” NGO, Blue/Yellow USA, whose general director is former US Army colonel Kestutis Eidukonis, a veteran of the Vietnam War, then collaborator of the government of Panama after the American invasion (1989-90) and advisor for military “affairs” in Latin America to the United States Southern Command (CINC USSOUTHCOM).».8
After launching a fundraising campaign among Lithuanian individuals and associations (called RADAROM) in January 2023 for “Strengthening Ukraine’s defense against Russian air attacks”, Jonas Öhman’s NGO was interested in purchasing 16 RADA ieMHR radars, twelve fixed and four mobile transport versions. For the Italian-Israeli radars, the Lithuanian NGO collected and spent no less than 14 million euros. The crowdfunding campaign was supported by Lithuanian private television channels Laisvės TV, 1K fondas and Stiprūs kartu, as well as the national radio and television station LRT itself, and the then Minister of Defense Arvydas Anušauskas.9
Blue/Yellow for Ukraine was also tasked with promoting the training of Ukrainian military personnel in the use of radars produced by the Israeli company. Four days of intensive courses were organized in Lithuania from March 14, 2023 for an unspecified number of Ukrainian personnel, under the supervision of the Vilnius Air Force Command.Two days were devoted to theoretical courses and the other two to purely practical and operational activities.”, said Jonas Öhman.We will deliver the 16 purchased radars within a few months; they are all Israeli-made. I think it is important to emphasize that previously Israel had not sold this technology to anyone in terms of assistance to Ukraine, but we reached this agreement through the Lithuanian government.»10The delivery of the first three RADA ieMHR radars was announced on May 4, 2023 by the Lithuanian NGO in a Facebook post.11. And Leonardo is made in Israel.
RADA Electronic Industries Ltd. was integrated into the holding company Leonardo SpA on June 21, 2022. Specifically, the American subsidiary Leonardo DRS Inc. acquired 100% of the share capital of RADA in exchange for the allocation of 19,5% of its shares to the historical shareholders of the Israeli company.12The financial transaction received the approval of the Italian government of the time, first and foremost the Ministry of Defense led by Lorenzo Guerini (PD).The merger agreement between Rada and Leonardo DRS is very positive and represents an important opportunity for the Italian military industry”, said Mr. Guerini.This news confirms the international excellence of our defense and security industrial sector.».13
Founded in 1970, RADA Electronic Industries Ltd. is an international leader in the design, manufacture and supply of advanced military tactical radars and software.We offer radar systems for active protection, enemy fire detection, countering unmanned systems, surveillance against all airborne threats, protection of critical infrastructures and border control.”, emphasize RADA managers. “Our technologies have a wide variety of installations and applications: fixed or on mobile vehicles, on board land tactical vehicles or in naval combat and patrol units.”14. DRS RADA Technologies is headquartered in the city of Netanya in the Central District, some 30 km north of Tel Aviv. It employs over 250 people in Israel and also has a research center in the Beersheba (Negev) high-tech park and a factory in the northern city of Beit She’an.
Following the acquisition by Leonardo, the company opened its own operational office in Germantown, Maryland (USA). However, almost all of the company’s board of directors and operational management continue to be Israeli citizens. The chairman of the board is Yossi Ben Shalom, founder of DBSI investments and former executive of Europcar Israel, American Express Israel and Scopus Technologies. The vice president of DRS Rada Technologies is Sandra L. “Sandy” Hodgkinson, who is also vice president of Leonardo DRS and responsible for the group’s “strategic development”. Before joining Leonardo, Ms. Hodgkinson served as a judge advocate general in the U.S. Navy and then, for years, as a senior U.S. government official (at the Department of Defense, the State Department and directly in the White House), including an instructor at the U.S. Navy War College and a senior advisor to the International Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq, after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The RADA board then includes General (ret.) Guy Tzur (former commander of the Israeli Ground Forces from 2013 to 2016 and now chairman of the board of directors of Taavura Group, Israel’s largest transportation, services and logistics group); Dov “Dubi” Sella (former fighter-bomber pilot in the Israeli Air Force and then director of the powerful Israeli military-industrial group Elbit Systems from 1982 to 1997); Max Cohen (an officer in the Israeli Air Force for 26 years, where he headed the Sky Picture department from 2013 to 2017, which developed the new architecture of the C2 radar and command and control systems, as well as the combat drone deployment programs); Yaron Ben-Ad (former COO of Orbotech, an Israeli electronics engineering company owned by KLA Corporation); Ravit Ram (former director of Motus GI Holdings Inc., a company active in the field of new technologies and artificial intelligence based in Boston, Massachusetts); Alon Amitay (from 1991 to 1998, project manager at the Israeli Air Force headquarters, then director of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd, another leading company in the Israeli military-industrial complex); Ilan Wittenberg (from 2002 to 2006, officer in the intelligence sector of the Tel Aviv armed forces, engaged in the development and deployment of new data link and location systems, then director of Elbit Systems).15.
«We work closely with the world’s leading military companies, such as Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Rheinmetall Air Defense, ELT (the Italian group Elettronica SpA with headquarters and factories in Rome, Via Tiburtina), Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Embraer, and others.”, states the DRS RADA Technologies fact sheet.16
RADA’s systems have been sold to more than thirty countries and are installed on hundreds of warfare platforms owned by the Israeli Army and Air Force, the US Army, the US Air Force, the Marine Corps and US Special Forces. In particular, the company manufactured key components of the Iron Dome mobile “anti-missile” weapon system, developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and first used in March 2011 against Hamas positions in Gaza. Rafael’s more modern Drone Dome anti-aircraft system, operational since 2016, also houses RADA equipment and sensors: the RPS-42 radar, the CONTROP Precision Technologies imaging system and radio signal detection systems.17
RADA Electronic Industries Ltd. radars have been integrated into the Iron Fist APS hard-kill active protection system manufactured by the IMI/Elbit Systems consortium for the Israeli army’s new “Eitan AFV” armored fighting vehicles, currently deployed as part of the bloody offensive against the Palestinian population of Gaza.The first delivery of the armored vehicles took place in May 2023, to the 933rd Nahal Brigade, with actual operational deployment planned for 2024.”, writes the Observatory of weapons in European and Mediterranean ports – The Weapon Watch. “However, the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023 led to the immediate use of the new means in the battle of Zikim, about 3 km north of the Gaza Strip, near an Israeli military base attacked by Palestinian militants (…) From there, the Eitans and the protection systems they mount – including the DRS RADA radars, from the Leonardo group – can also be defined as combat-tested.».18
https://kyivindependent.com/lithuania-announces-new-military-aid-package-including-drones-air-defense-missiles
https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/node/62953
https://t.me/intelslava/65418
https://www.lrt.lt/lithuania-to-contribute-radars-to-german-led-air-defence-coalition-for-ukraine
https://www.drsrada.com/products/iemhr
https://www.facebook.com/posts/3553676
https://blue-yellow.lt/en
https://foblueyellowukraineusa.org/our-board-%26-team
https://mil.in.ua/funds-are-being-raised-in-lithuania-to-purchase-five-radars-for-ukraine
Ibid.
https://www.facebook.com/posts/3553676
https://pagineesteri.it/2022/06/27/industrie-militari-litaliana-leonardo-si-fonde-con-lisraeliana-rada
https://www.startmag.it/che-cosa-fara-leonardo-drs-con-lisraeliana-rada
https://www.leonardodrs.com/who-we-are/our-segments/drs-rada-technologies
https://www.drsrada.com/about/our-leadership
https://www.drsrada.com/about
https://seekingalpha.com/rada-electronic-ind-sells-at-a-bargain-price
https://www.weaponwatch.net/2024/01/26/cosa-produce-leonardo-per-israele