Defending Rodinu: Volume 2 - Build-Up and Operational History of the Soviet Air Defence Force, 1960-1989

"...the paranoid nature of Mother Russia is never more clearly on display than in Dabrowski’s book. This work is much more than a modeler’s information source. It is an excellent story of a Cold War that occasionally became very hot and lethal." ― The Journal of the Air Force Historical Foundation

In the 1950s, the Soviets had managed to grow a major Air Defense Force (PVO) capable of covering the entire airspace of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The PVO was able to field interceptors and surface-to-air missiles to intercept even high-flying foreign reconnaissance aircraft. By the early 1960s, the Soviets managed to theoretically, seal their airspace to unwanted visitors. Nevertheless, multiple foreign intelligence agencies and air forces continued seeking to penetrate the airspace of the USSR by means ranging from non-steerable ‘spy blimps’, via strategic bombers, to high-speed tactical reconnaissance aircraft. This activity kept the PVO on constant alert so that time and again it reacted mercilessly, even to entirely innocent passenger airliners, causing several major international incidents.

Defending Rodinu Volume 2 provides the operational history of the Soviet PVO from the early 1960s until the late 1980s – a period of continuously escalating tensions of the Cold War. Using documentation and publications never before released in the English language and richly illustrated, it provides a comprehensive, single-source point of reference for historians and enthusiasts alike.

Krzysztof Dabrowski from Poland has a lifelong interest in the subject of military aviation, and has written dozens of articles on a variety of related subjects for printed magazines and the ACIG.org/ACIG.info, AeroHisto and The Boresight websites. His particular area of interest is the air warfare during the Cold War, the aircraft involved, and the experiences of their crews. This is his first instalment for Helion.