Since Thursday (19), Moscow social networks have been talking about only one thing: the installation of anti-aircraft defense systems in government buildings in the center of the city, an obvious sign that Vladimir Putin’s government is concerned about the possibility of being attacked in its own capital by the Ukraine it invaded in 2022.
It all started with the circulation of a photograph of a Pantsir-S1 short-range battery on top of the huge Ministry of Defense building, which is 3.5 km southwest of the Kremlin, on the opposite bank of the Moscow River from the famous Gorky Park.
Later, video captured another Pantsir being hoisted to the top of a Ministry of Education building about 5 km to the east in the Taganski district. From there, images of the weapons system swarm in other points around Moscow, such as about 10 km from Putin’s official residence, in Novo-Ogariovo.
“It’s scary, it reminds me of the stories of my grandmother in the Second World War, when there were batteries on the roofs,” said journalist Mikhail, who asked not to have his last name disclosed, via WhatsApp. He lives near Taganski, and his military background makes him speculate that the position of that particular battery is to cover the eastern approach to the Kremlin.
“Nobody says anything, that’s a bad sign, even more so after what happened in Engels,” he continued, referring to long-distance drone attacks of Soviet origin that Kiev carried out against the homonymous air base, 800 km from the Ukrainian border. There was also an attack a mere 180 km from Moscow, which in turn is 450 km from the neighboring country, within range of former Ukrainian weapons (1,000 km).
This Friday (20), Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov was urged by reporters to explain what was happening. He did not, saying defense matters should be discussed with the ministry, which for its part did not comment.
The Pantsir-S1 are short range and low altitude systems, the last of the three layers of the Russian anti-aircraft defense system: in the long range are the S-300, the S-400 and the new S-500, while in the middle range are employed batteries such as Tor-M1 and Buk, among other models.
Moscow was already protected by long-distance systems, according to military analysts, but the introduction of these batteries, which protected stadiums in the 2018 World Cup, suggests the concern precisely with drones, which are smaller and more difficult to intercept. The Pantsir-S1 performed poorly against suicide drones in Syria’s civil war, but they have since been upgraded with new radar and appear to be having success in Ukraine, where they are being operated.
They attack their targets with missiles that have a range of 18 km in distance and 15 km in altitude. If a drone or cruise missile escapes, it still has two very short-range cannons to try to shoot them down.
Some pro-Kremlin observers seem resigned to the sign of military failure that the batteries imply. “This means that [o governo] fully understands the risks and understands that attacks against Moscow and other regions are a matter of time,” wrote Putin-aligned military journalist Alexander Kots. “It’s good to start planning before rather than after a first attack.”
His professional colleague Mikhail sees the issue differently. “If the war reaches Moscow, it will be a huge failure for Putin, it will be difficult to hide the problem,” he says. When he was in the capital at the end of October, the Sheet saw very few references to the conflict that started last February in the streets of the city, a deliberate policy of the Kremlin.
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