Strelets

Russia's soldier-portable reconnaissance, control and communications complex — the KRUS Strelets (Kompleks Razvedki, Upravleniya i Svyazi) — is the "find" half of Russia's reconnaissance-fire loop, linking scouts, drone operators, forward air controllers and artillery spotters to the guns and aircraft that strike. Part of the Ratnik soldier kit and refined in Syria, it is the closest Russian analogue to Ukraine's GIS Arta and Kropyva — but Ukrainian field accounts describe a system whose centralised fire-approval and electronic-warfare fragility blunt its on-paper capability.

Overview

Strelets is a modular, man-portable command-control-communications-and-intelligence (C3I) system built around rugged tablets, computers and radios. Its job is to digitize the sensor-to-shooter chain: a forward observer, scout, UAV operator or radar crew tags an enemy position and passes coordinates over the network to artillery, rocket or aviation units, compressing what was a voice-and-paper process. Russian and Western analysts describe it as the technological enabler of the razvedyvatelno-ognevoy kontur — the reconnaissance-fire complex (ROS) — that RealClearDefense and Jamestown credit with integrating "various radar, sensors and means of reconnaissance and fires at operational-tactical levels." It is a component of Russia's Ratnik infantry-modernization suite and is fielded to reconnaissance, artillery-spotting, forward-air-control and special-operations units.

Development

Strelets was developed by NPO Sozvezdie (now within Rostec's Ruselectronics holding) — the same Voronezh C2 house behind the brigade-level ESU-TZ program — and entered service in the 2000s. The current Strelets-M (export designation 83t415E) is described by its maker as the second generation: lighter, more compact and more capable than the original, per Teller Report. It is sold in role-specific kits — a basic soldier set plus man-portable kits for commanders, ELINT operators, signalmen, forward air controllers, forward artillery observers, radar operators and UAV operators, per the Rosoboronexport catalog. A 2018 Oxford CCW study marked the recon-fire complex it underpins as "coming of age," with much of the practical refinement drawn from Russia's Syria deployment.

🔒 The rest of the Strelets file is for BattlePolicy Pro members. Stop here and you miss the part that actually matters: how it performs and where it falls short, its combat record, how it stacks up head-to-head against its real counterparts, the complete specifications table, and our analysts’ procurement, supplier and assessment notes. Unlock the full file with BattlePolicy Pro →