Anti-aircraft defense batteries installed on the roofs of Moscow

If the climate in Russia were more serene, it would almost look like a game: in recent days, Muscovites have been trying to spot on the roofs of their city, with supporting photographs, unexpected guests: anti-aircraft defense systems deployed in battle stance.

The first images appeared on the evening of January 19. A Pantsir S-1 being hoisted by a gigantic crane onto the roof of a downtown office building. A little later, another was seen on the roof of the military headquarters. A third on a printing press…

In all, no less than seven new air defense systems were reported in two days, on roofs but also on the ground. The Sirena information site located one of them a few kilometers from the residence of Vladimir Putin. In addition to the Pantsir, a vehicle capable of intercepting cruise and ballistic missiles, S-400 batteries, a more massive and more modern model, are also in the game.

The flood of images then dried up, either that the deployment was over or that passersby were reminded of the danger of sending such photographs, even to friends. On the political side, these appearances have given rise to some confusion. When questioned, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, was content to refer to the Ministry of Defense, which declined to comment.

Significant blur

Thus left without an official directive, the deputy Evgueni Lebedev, of the Duma committee for defense, said he was convinced that the photographs disseminated were “fakes, montages”. Sign of the unconvincing nature of these denials, the local official Moscow media continued to raise the subject, even to broadcast their own images.

This blur is significant. Since the start of the “special operation” in Ukraine on February 24, the authorities have constantly alternated, with regard to security in Russia itself, between reassuring declarations, overplaying normality, and initiatives establishing maximum tension – that it is a question of very demonstrative verifications of anti-aircraft shelters or the formation of territorial defense units in certain regions. The frontier territories of Ukraine are indeed the target of almost daily bombardments.

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On Saturday January 21, the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in the United States, thus estimated that the deployment of anti-aircraft systems was above all intended to install “tension” and to prepare Russian opinion for a long conflict. . The embarrassment is all the more understandable since on January 18, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov once again declared: “Despite all the laws of war, despite international humanitarian law, Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense is deployed in residential areas. »

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