Yle: Yandex “painted” a forest over a missile battery near Finland to hide it on its maps

Yandex, a popular Russian mapping service, has found a new way to hide military facilities. In particular, a satellite image has revealed fragments of forest in the area near the port of Kronstadt near St. Petersburg, where a missile battery is located.

This was noted by the Finnish publication Yle on August 17.

Previously, Yandex tried to mask military facilities, mainly by blurring their details in satellite images. Last spring, researchers counted 119 blurred facilities in the western part of Russia.

Now, a forest image has been superimposed on top of the missile battery using a graphics editor. The same battery is clearly visible on Google, Apple, and Microsoft maps.

Russia is probably hiding the target from Ukrainian drone strikes. However, military expert and former Finnish intelligence officer Marco Eklund considers this “secrecy” to be pointless, since Western or Ukrainian intelligence relies on its own satellite images. According to him, the manipulation is an administrative decision, and the processing itself in Kronstadt was done carelessly — if you know what to look for, it is easy to notice.

According to Yle, the hidden area previously housed Bastion anti-ship missiles and associated radar and reconnaissance systems.

• Kronstadt is a key base for Russiaʼs Baltic Fleet. Ukraine has previously attacked the area with drones, most notably in early June when drones hit a Russian missile ship undergoing repairs in port.

For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.