In what appears to be a desperate move by Moscow, satellite imagery reveals that vital military installations in Russia’s far northern Arctic regions have been stripped of their air defense batteries. These anti-air assets are being moved to the interior of Russia, as the Kremlin seeks to find some response to an increasingly successful Ukrainian 40-day drone campaign.
The attacks that are part of this campaign are designed to pressure the Kremlin into a peace settlement by targeting Moscow’s oil industry, air defense emplacements and the Shadow Fleet that illegally transports Russian oil to export customers.
Putin with Military in 2018 Creative Commons Image
The satellite images that were examined by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL show the Kremlin has redeployed units from several strategically important sites that had at one time been heavily protected by Almaz-Antei S-300 and S-400 missile systems. They appear to have been left undefended, as no air defense units or any other defensive measures were left in their place.
By way of example, as of 6 July, a missile base that was established in August 2015 (if not earlier) near the Rogachevo aerodrome has seen most of its air defense assets removed. That missile site is located on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago of the Arctic region of Russia.
One of the specialists who spoke with RFE/RL was Katarzyna Zysk, a professor with the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies. She told the news service that what appears to be the removal of so many air defense platforms from Russia’s far north demonstrates “a growing mismatch between the targets Russia must protect and its available launchers, interceptors, and trained personnel” that can adequately protect them.
Tu-95 Bear Bomber. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Probable and Improbable Targeting
Zysk’s assessment is that the removal of these units from forward-positioned missile sites does not mean that all Russian strategic sites are left completely without air defense. What it instead indicates, she says, is “that Russia does not anticipate an imminent large-scale attack in the [far north] region and judges that it can reduce protection there without incurring unacceptable risk.”
Her assumptions are based on analyzing what has been the consistent pattern in the Ukrainian drone campaign thus far. For the most part, Kyiv has targeted sites in two categories.
In the first are those sites directly involved in Russia’s war against Ukraine. These have been air bases used for launching bombing and missile attacks on major cities, naval facilities, and ammunition depots. The other priority targets have been refineries, oil terminals, petroleum storage tanks, tankers and other facilities linked to Russia’s energy industry infrastructure.
Open-source investigations of Russian military facilities estimate that up to 60 percent of Russia’s S-300 and the follow-on generation S-400 air defense systems have been transported from the sites where they were once based before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The exceptions are those air defense units that were situated around Russia’s nuclear missile silos and strategic bomber airfields. All those units have largely remained in place.
Patterns of Redeployment
One of the sites in Russia where nuclear-powered submarines are built and repaired is the city of Severodvinsk on the White Sea. There are multiple locations in this region where air defense systems were in place and manned for decades to defend this strategically important industrial site.
Those positions where those air defense batteries once stood are now empty. Around two dozen S-300 and S-400 batteries recently disappeared from locations around the city that were originally constructed specifically for them, according to recent images.
According to an 11 July report in The Barents Observer, one of the missile systems that was removed from its base and out of the Severodvinsk region was later traced to the death in combat of the commander of an S-400 missile battery. The officer, Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Spiridonov, was killed in Crimea in April 2024, following which his remains were returned to the city for burial.
Tu-95. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Tu-95 Bomber Russian Air Force. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
As these air defense platforms are removed from these far north locations, some of them later appear redeployed at locations that are more likely targets for Ukrainian drone attacks. An image taken near the Saratov oil refinery in southwestern Russia shows that a once-empty field is now home to multiple air defense missile launch vehicles, with their missile canister launch assemblies elevated into the firing position.
The Saratov facility has been hit by drone attacks multiple times since early 2025. Other locations around Russia, including city parks in Moscow, have now been converted to sites for S-400 batteries in recent weeks.
Zysk says that the Ukraine conflict has shown that “fixed positions are acutely vulnerable to drones and saturation attack.” This is equally true of air defense units, which have also been a high-priority target for drone strikes and missile attacks. Whether or not these Russian air defense batteries will be left in position at their new locations indefinitely or will be redeployed again will depend on the Kremlin deciding to move its air defense commands to “a more dispersed, layered posture.”
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
