Russia is moving a large number of anti-aircraft missiles towards Ukraine, including from St. Petersburg.
Yle writes about it.
Satellite images published by a Finnish publication show that mobile fire platforms and missiles disappeared from the base in the Zelenohorsk region on the Karelian Isthmus near St. Petersburg in the summer.
Neither Russia nor Western countries publicly reported on the movement of this equipment.
For a long time, St. Petersburg was surrounded by a protective ring of 14 anti-aircraft missile bases. Now several of them have been emptied.
"According to the pictures, four anti-aircraft bases have been cleared of equipment," military expert retired Major Marko Eklund told Yle.
This map shows anti-aircraft missile batteries around St. Petersburg, which has a population of 5.5 million people.
Yle
According to Eklund, the transfer of equipment is unlikely to significantly weaken the anti-aircraft defenses of St. Petersburg since the seized weapons are the oldest that are at the base.
The two images below show that all missile platforms have been removed from Battery 500 of the Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment near the village of Kerstovo. The first photo was taken a year ago, the second — at the beginning of September.
Another battery of the same regiment is located one and a half kilometers to the northeast. It is also emptied completely. Only the equipment from the radar station, which is on the same base, remains.
Of the four batteries of the regiment, only two remained in place. The pictures show that the Russians also removed about 25 containers of missiles from one of the batteries. They could contain a hundred shells.
According to Eklund, in May, containers with missiles were loaded onto transport platforms at the base east of St. Petersburg.
The second picture shows that not only the containers with missiles have disappeared but also a number of vehicles that have been standing in the open for years. Presumably, up to 120 missiles were taken from the site in missile containers.
The Russians also moved a significant amount of equipment — about 10 firing platforms, as well as other equipment — from the base southeast of St. Petersburg.
According to Eklund, in this case, it may be about new missile equipment since the Russian armed forces said that this regiment uses the S-400 anti-aircraft missile system.
Most of the anti-aircraft missiles remaining in the St. Petersburg area are used in the S-400 missile system.
"Most likely, the seized equipment belongs to the old S-300 system," Eklund noted.
He believes that Russia has weakened anti-missile defenses on the outskirts of St. Petersburg because it needs missiles for the war against Ukraine.
"These old missiles are being used for ground targets in such a way that the greatest damage seems to be to the civilian population," the expert said.
- On September 15, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, said that Russia had launched more than 3,800 different missiles over Ukraine.