A new air defense position has appeared on Sparrow Hills in Moscow, according to journalists from Radio Svoboda. They report that the surface-to-air missile systems were placed about 300 meters from the office of the Innopraktika foundation, headed by Vladimir Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova.
The report says that in May, launchers for the S-300/400 systems and a 40V6MR mobile tower were deployed there. The equipment is located on the grounds of Moscow State University’s science and technology center, which is being built with assistance from the Innopraktika foundation.
It also notes that the Lomonosov building of Moscow State University, which houses Innopraktika’s main office, stands at roughly the same distance from the air defense site.
A new air-defense ring
Radio Svoboda believes a second air-defense “ring” is being formed around the center of the Russian capital. According to the journalists, it consists not of Pantsir systems but of S-400 installations.
The site near Innopraktika is described as the closest to the Kremlin among all the positions that the outlet attributed to this new ring. Similar sites, the report says, have also appeared in the Izmailovo, Losiny Ostrov, and Moskvoretsky parks, as well as on the experimental fields of the Timiryazev Academy.
Other systems in the capital
At the same time, Pantsir systems continue to appear in Moscow and the surrounding region. In particular, on June 26, Ukrainian monitoring channels published a photograph of one such installation on the roof of the Avenue 77 residential complex, the tallest building in the Chertanovo district.
Since late May, at least four videos have been published showing air defense systems being installed on Moscow high-rise buildings, including residential ones. The outlet Agentstvo wrote that placing missile systems on such buildings may turn them into military targets and increase the potential danger to civilians.