Russia Transfers ‘Old’ St. Petersburg Missiles To Ukraine Front

Due to a lack of modern weaponry this summer, the Russian military transported outdated anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, which caused significant harm to people, satellite photographs, the Yle television in Finland reported on Sunday.

Finnish military specialist Marko Eklund, at least four out of the 14 anti-aircraft missile stations surrounding St. Petersburg were “emptied of equipment” in August and September.

Eklund, who has observed the Russian armed forces for more than 20 years, continued, “It is most likely that the equipment that has been taken is mostly from the outdated S-300 system.

The S-400 systems, which have double the range of their S-300 Soviet-era predecessors, appear to be the only missiles still defending the airspace over the second-largest city in Russia close to the Finnish border.

Eklund, Russia has probably relocated some of its older weaponry to the Ukrainian front lines, which hasn’t severely damaged St. Petersburg’s air defences.

The 14 batteries positioned in a circle around St. Petersburg, Yle, contain more than 100 mobile fire platforms and at least 450 missiles.

In southern Russia’s Voronezh region, where Yle alleges that half of its missile fleet had “vanished” by May, three months after Moscow began an unjustified invasion of its neighbour, the most recent shift follows similar movements closer to Ukraine.

The head of Ukraine’s defence ministry’s intelligence division stated earlier this month that Russia has so far fired more than 500 S-300 missiles on Ukrainian sites and still has 7,000 missiles, or three years’ worth, left to use.

The Russian military’s use of S-300s is largely explained by a lack of conventional ballistic missiles as they were not initially intended for land targets.

It reported Eklund as adding, “These obsolete missiles are employed for ground targets in such a way that the greatest harm seems to be done to civilians.”