How did Russia contribute to the birth of the KM-SAM(Cheongung) series?
As already discussed in KSLV-I, Russia has been engaged in technical cooperation with South Korea in a number of areas. The air defense system is also a result of this “cooperation.” This cooperation is unique in that it is not a unilateral provision of technical assistance from one side to the other, but rather the sharing of technologies possessed by each other and their application to the systems of the other country.
South Korea completed intermediate-range air defense systems with KM-SAM and Russia with S-350E Vityaz.
Let's look at the situation in South Korea at the time (late 1990s to late 2000s). North Korea had been threatening South Korea with short-range ballistic missiles for some time. Moreover, North Korea's nuclear program made it a much more dangerous threat than the Scud missiles of the Iraq War, and South Korea had no other option than the US Patriot missile. However, the U.S. Patriot missiles were too expensive (South Korea was strapped for cash in the aftermath of the IMF financial crisis) and the limited budget would not have allowed South Korea to fill the air defense zone. South Korea's eventual acquisition of Patriot missiles came from used PAC-2s that were part of a German disarmament in the mid- to late-2000s. These PAC-2s were commissioned by the U.S. to be upgraded to near PAC-3 Conf-2 capability to replace South Korea's Nike missiles. Considering that South Korea did not acquire the PAC-3 MSE until the early to mid-2010s, the Patriot series is a capable but expensive system for South Korea.
The air defense missile South Korea had at the time was the old Nike Hercules, the MIM-23 HAWK.
The problem was the Hawk. Of course, Hawk is a system that can have limited defense capabilities against cruise and ballistic missiles in the current battlefield if MLU is implemented. However, South Korea was not willing to improve it to that extent and decided that it was better to create a new medium-range missile defense system. The ADD had previously developed a short-range air defense missile, the K-31 missile, with French assistance, but had no experience with an air defense missile with a medium-range range of 40 kilometers. It was also the first decentralized complex weapon system developed by South Korea, with multifunctional radars, command and control centers, and launchers that were previously developed as separate systems from surface-to-air missiles, and guided missiles guided by active homing. At the time, the military had no experience operating this type of weapon, and when the ADD explained it, they did not understand it well and even questioned it. It can be seen that this was a very challenging project for South Korea at the time.
Inevitably, the development had to be done with foreign cooperation..... This is where Russia comes into play again as the best candidate
When Russia was still called the Soviet Union, it was forced to build up its air defense missile forces to counter the mighty American air power. From Vietnam to the Middle East to the Balkans, they fought a proxy war of spears and shields. Then the Russians realized that their air defense systems were too heavy and complicated. Of course, these air defense systems with the letter S were effective, but they were also too expensive to produce, which would put them at a disadvantage in modern warfare. Therefore, they drew up a plan to create a new missile system. The problem was that Russia, being a country born out of the collapse of the Soviet Union at the time, didn't have the money.
South Korea offered Russia a basic ROC for an air defense missile system that South Korea wanted to develop. In 2005, the two countries signed an agreement in the form of a technology joint venture in which Russia would lead the design of key components such as the system and antennas, while South Korea would provide technologies in the digital, information and communication, projet management, and manufacturing sectors that it had been developing. (AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA AND THE GOVERNMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION ON COOPERATION ON THE PROGRAM OF THE MEDIUM RANGE SURFACE-TO-AIR MISSILE SYSTEM) For this series of cooperation, Korea paid royalties to Russia, which is said to be about $2.8 million. To be honest, I haven't found the exact official data, but this is the amount according to the sources available on the Internet.
In 2006, Russia's Almaz delivered a prototype of the МФРЛС (MFR) to Korea, and Korea conducted tests that implemented various weather conditions in the actual situation as much as possible. Almaz signed a new contract with Samsung Thales (currently Hanwha Aerospace) to produce the second prototype of the MFR, provide mass production and technical documents, and Samsung Thales was in charge of coordinating and checking it. In this process, they must have gained experience on how to develop phase-array radars. This 3D PESA radar, which was created after the CDR began, is the world's first radar to apply the radar rotation mode and stop mode. Russia opposed the dual mode, saying it had technical difficulties, but ADD developed a reliable rotating motor to overcome it.
Some may think that the cold-launching method of the guided missile indicates that the cooperation with Russia is limited to the missile, but the missile itself is 100% indigenously developed with technologies from the United States and Europe. This is especially true given that the missile's components are similar to those of the PAC series. However, it is clear that the cold launching was influenced by Russia.
In any case, each component of the system was developed, integrated, and finally tested, and development was completed in 2011. This experience led to the development of the M-SAM II, an improved version of the system to counter ballistic missiles, which was later developed into the L-SAM, a high-altitude, long-range surface-to-air missile system. It was also the largest single-item export to Middle Eastern countries such as the UAE and KSA, which would not have been possible without this experience.
This experience allowed Russia to introduce and study Western technologies through foreign technical cooperation (in the areas of digital, project management, information and communication, manufacturing, etc.) Of course, unlike the M-SAM, which was developed in the early 2010s, the S-350 was tested in 2013, but mass production did not begin until the early 2020s and was delivered to the Russian military. There are also differences in the MFR, such as the change from PESA to AESA. Perhaps the delay in mass production was due to the need to create a naval version as well as a land version. Anyway, the S-350 is said to have done well in the war in Ukraine, which is a pity in retrospect.
The bottom line is that the cooperation between Russia and South Korea was a win-win. The diplomatic situation was good and the interests of both countries were well aligned, which led to satisfactory results. If any of the conditions had been broken, the cooperation would have been broken or prolonged, and South Korea would not have gotten to where it is today.