Air defenses deployed in Moscow, signaling fear of strikes on capital - The Washington Post

Photographs of the distinctive aerial defence strategy were published connected societal media.

More aerial defence systems were installed astatine respective different sites successful oregon adjacent Moscow, including Odintsovo district, astir six miles from President Vladimir Putin’s residence astatine Novo-Ogaryovo extracurricular the capital, according to the Russian media outlet Sirena, which posted video and inactive images.

Russian subject expert Ruslan Leviev of Conflict Intelligence Team, an autarkic radical that analyzes unfastened root intelligence, reported that an S-400 aerial defence strategy would beryllium installed successful the Losiny Island Park extracurricular Moscow, wherever trees person been cleared successful caller days. Leviev spoke connected Popular Politics, a YouTube transmission associated with jailed absorption person Alexei Navalny.

Asked Friday whether the Kremlin feared airstrikes could beryllium carried retired against Moscow, Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov referred queries to the Russian Ministry of Defense. “They are liable for ensuring the information of the state successful wide and the superior successful particular, truthful it’s amended to inquire the Ministry of Defense astir each the measures that are being taken,” Peskov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry seldom responds to questions from Western media and did not reply to an emailed question Friday. The scope of the Pantsir-S1 defence strategy would screen overmuch of cardinal Moscow, including the Kremlin.

The positioning of the weapons follows disapproval from Russian analysts astir gaps successful Russia’s aerial defenses aft astatine slightest 4 Ukrainian strikes past period connected subject airfields heavy wrong Russia, 3 of them targeting the Engels subject aerial basal adjacent Saratov, wherever Russia bases long-range strategical bombers. Another struck the Diagilevo aerial basal adjacent Ryazan, astir 114 miles southeast of Moscow.

“It looks similar they are drafting conclusions from the information that Ukrainian drones were flying into bases acold successful the rear, specified arsenic those successful Diagilevo and Engels,” Leviev said. “Apparently due to the fact that of this fear, and successful wide due to the fact that of Vladimir Putin’s fearfulness of rocket attacks, they decided to fortify Moscow’s defenses successful this way, due to the fact that they recognize precise good that with specified a leaky Russian aerial defence on the border, seemingly Ukrainian drones tin theoretically scope Moscow arsenic well.”

The December attacks demonstrated Kyiv’s quality to onslaught heavy successful Russian territory arsenic Ukraine continues to conflict to regain territory mislaid during Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

The airstrikes successful Russia followed a drawstring of different Ukrainian astonishment attacks that person humiliated Moscow, including the bombing of a span linking Crimea to Russia, strikes connected Saki aerial basal successful Crimea, and the sinking of the warship Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Russia is reinforcing its capital’s defenses arsenic Putin has been preparing the Russian nationalist for a long, hard warfare against Ukraine and a prolonged confrontation with NATO.

Putin has shifted Russia’s system to a wartime footing, demanding that companies service the warfare effort, and has progressively militarized Russian society, intensifying a propaganda effort to buttress enactment for the war, amid rising casualties astatine the beforehand and swirling rumors of a imaginable second, unpopular wide mobilization.

Since the commencement of the invasion, Putin has crushed his governmental absorption and Russia has squashed absorption to the warfare by banning protests, curbing escaped code and imprisoning critics.

On Tuesday, Putin ordered an summation of much than 350,000 unit successful Russia’s subject spot — to a full of 1.5 million, though it is acold from wide that the state tin muster capable unpaid declaration soldiers to scope that target.

After wintertime slowed their advances, Russian and Ukrainian forces are each reported to beryllium preparing caller offensives, mounting the signifier for what could beryllium a decisive signifier successful the warfare successful coming months.

The show of aerial defence missiles successful cardinal Moscow is different motion of the warfare being normalized successful Russian life.

As the penetration drags on, officials, including Putin, progressively notation to it arsenic a “war” being waged by NATO against Russia, characterizing it, without evidence, arsenic an existential conflict for endurance against greedy Western powers determined to dismember and gobble up the Russian nation.

After the strikes successful aboriginal December connected 2 Russian aerial bases, Russian subject historiographer Yuri Knutov, the manager of the Museum of Air Defense Forces, told authorities tv that Russia near holes successful its aerial defence strategy erstwhile it sent overmuch of its subject instrumentality to Ukraine.

“Gaps formed successful our aerial defence system. American satellites tin spot these gaps well. I don’t uncertainty it, and the specialists bash not uncertainty it,” Knutov warned astatine the time.

The salient Russian pro-war subject blogger Alexander Kots, a writer with the mass-circulation pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, wrote connected his Telegram transmission that the installation of aerial defence systems successful the superior was a affirmative sign, demonstrating that Russian authorities “understand that strikes against Moscow and the portion are a substance of time.”

Leviev said the recently installed aerial defence systems were a past resort, successful lawsuit a rocket oregon drone managed to evade outer Russian aerial defenses to scope Moscow. If not for the war, helium added, specified systems would beryllium positioned acold from Moscow, “but Russia is simply a belligerent state now, and drones are coming into Russia, truthful this is beauteous overmuch expected.”

As Western officials weighed sending dense conflict tanks to Ukraine, the lawman president of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, warned connected Thursday that atomic powers specified arsenic Russia could not suffer wars, and helium threatened that Western efforts to enactment Kyiv could trigger a atomic war. It was the latest of a fig of atomic threats issued by elder Russian officials.