“If drones are in Moscow, this is already a failure of air defense.” Why the Russian military cannot protect the capital from air attacks

What's happened

Early on Monday morning, two drones attacked Moscow.

One of them fell on the roof of a house at 17 Komsomolsky Prospekt. About 200 meters from it is the building of the Ministry of Defense, and other military department buildings are located nearby. Telegram channel “112” wrote that windows in several neighboring houses were broken.

Bellingcat project investigator Hristo Grozev noted that near the site where the debris fell there are the Military University and several secret facilities of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, in particular, the “cyber attack headquarters.” In 2020, Novaya Gazeta wrote that attacks by the Russian hacker group Fancy Bear were coordinated from the building at 20 Komsomolsky Prospekt.

The second drone hit a business center under construction on Likhachev Avenue, next to the Third Ring Road and the ZiL MCC station. As a result of the drone hit, the upper floors of the building were damaged.

“112” published a video of a drone flying over, filmed in the Kolomenskaya metro area. It is alleged that a few minutes later this drone hit the business center building.

Also on Monday, in the Zelenograd district of Moscow, a drone without an explosive device fell on the territory of the central cemetery, no one was injured. According to SHOT, it was a DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone with a camera.

Officially, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that drones hit “two non-residential buildings”; according to him, there was no serious damage or casualties. The Russian Ministry of Defense blamed Ukraine for the attack on Moscow. The Russian military claims that both launched drones were destroyed by electronic warfare and “crashed.”

According to Ukrainian media, the attack on Moscow was organized by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. “All the birds have flown to Moscow,” say RBC-Ukraine’s sources in the intelligence services. “Cooperation between volunteers and the structure gives good results, more to come,” said a source of Ukrayinska Pravda in the “security and defense sector.”

“Shells” on the roofs and “sealing” the air defense of Moscow

In January of this year, the Russian media wrote a lot about the installation of Pantsir-S1 air defense systems on the roofs of houses in the center of Moscow. One of the “Shells” stands on the building of the Ministry of Defense, 200 meters from which a drone fell today. Also, S-400 complexes were placed in the Losiny Ostrov park and on the Experimental Fields of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

Drones fly into the Moscow region regularly, but strikes on Moscow (especially if you do not take into account the territory of New Moscow ) occur infrequently. The most memorable of them are the attacks on the Senate Palace of the Kremlin on May 3 and the massive attack on the capital and region on May 30. Then the drones hit two high-rise buildings within the Moscow Ring Road.

On May 30, after the second raid, Vladimir Putin assessed the work of air defense in Moscow as “standard” and “satisfactory”, but said that there was something to work on. “In general, it is clear what needs to be done to strengthen the air defense of the capital. And we will do this,” the president noted. Two weeks later, at a meeting with “military correspondents,” Putin again spoke about air defense. According to him, the “traditional” system is configured for missiles and large aircraft, and it is difficult for it to detect drones. “But they show up. Although here, of course, it is necessary to carry out the appropriate work, open it in a timely manner, and so on. And this, of course, is being done and will be done for sure, as for Moscow and other large centers - I don’t even have any doubts about it,” Putin said.

On July 4, after another drone attack on the Moscow region and New Moscow (then the authorities had to limit the operation of Vnukovo airport for three hours), the Moscow government allocated a grant to NPO Almaz to improve air defense systems “taking into account current challenges and threats.” The money will be used “to improve means of detecting low-altitude targets, including unmanned aerial vehicles.”

What the experts say

A small low-flying drone made of carbon fiber or composite materials is a difficult target for classical Russian air defense, and often it may not be classified as a hostile object, says Israeli military expert David Sharp. “The task facing Russian air defense is not an easy one, especially since the Ukrainians will and are already increasing their capabilities,” says the analyst.

It is difficult to say what exactly happened to the drones that flew to Moscow on July 24. “Maybe the attack was missed from start to finish, maybe the electronic warfare equipment really worked, but, in any case, if it happened, it was literally at the last second, when the drones were already deep in Moscow,” the expert notes.

The use of missiles and cannons of the Pantsir complex over the city can be dangerous for civilians, Sharp recalls. If a drone is hit by a missile, a missile detonation is added to the explosion of the drone's warhead. When using cannons, some of the shells will definitely fly past the target and fall inside the city. “Of course, using air defense systems installed on the roofs of houses in a huge city is very problematic. However, once they are installed, they are going to use them. In any case, they do not rule out this possibility,” says the expert.

Ukrainian military expert, former military pilot Roman Svitan considers the installation of “Pantsir” on the roof of the Ministry of Defense building to be idiocy, because one such complex is more dangerous than a whole group of drones. “Any missile failure will ultimately lead to casualties on the ground. The rocket will fall somewhere, even if it [hits the target and] explodes. And if it doesn’t explode, then it will end up somewhere,” notes Svitan. The analyst is sure that the “Pantsir” on the roof of the Ministry of Defense building has never worked - either it was not connected, or there is a mock-up there.

Defending Moscow from Ukrainian drone attacks is difficult, but not impossible, Sharp says. To do this, the air defense system must operate comprehensively - from the Russian border to Moscow. “It should have many different levels, layers and stages. In a country where the air defense system is truly strong, such sporadic attacks would rarely be successful. However, the Russian command failed to achieve this,” says the analyst. In the early stages, far from Moscow, detection systems should operate, including fighter aircraft. “If the drones are in Moscow, the main failure has already been committed, because they flew 500 kilometers over Russian territory. The last line of defense has to be a solid wall for it to work,” Sharp explains.

Svitan believes that it is impossible to create an effective anti-drone air defense system over Russia due to the large area: “As I understand it, realizing that this was unrealistic, [the Russian military] simply did not do it.”

Svitan expects drone attacks in Moscow to be more frequent and widespread in the future. According to him, such attacks are now being carried out on Crimea. “20-30 drones come in in waves. Half of them take on air defense strikes, and half go through and carry out combat missions. Moscow is the second [most important] target after Crimea, since there are a lot of legitimate military targets in Moscow,” says Svitan.

Detail

The day before, the telegram channel “VChK-OGPU”, close to the special services, wrote about the detention of military personnel from the Kolomna Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Taldomsky urban district in the north of the Moscow region. Residents of the village of Kushki called the police, informing them about suspicious people in military uniform who were launching drones.

The military explained to the police that they were testing new radar systems for the effectiveness of detecting drones, and the launched drones were used as targets.