‘Impermeable’ air defense belt protects Moscow

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on August 8 that Russia has established a three-layer air defense network to protect the capital Moscow, as well as building a similar defense network on a smaller scale around the country’s second largest city, Saint Petersburg.

Newspaper Kyiv Post of Ukraine in late May, citing satellite data and intelligence sources, said Russia had deployed a third layer of air defense within the previous few months, forming a closed belt around the capital Moscow and its crowded suburbs.

This defense layer complements the two existing belts, including specialized anti-unmanned aircraft (UAV) towers. “The Russian army also reinforced the inner city defense belt to protect the Kremlin. This defense mainly revolves around mobile short-range air defense systems,” Kyiv Post said.

Video released at the end of May shows a Mi-26 helicopter hoisting the Pantsir-SMD-E air defense platform onto the roof of a high-rise building in central Moscow.

This is a specialized anti-UAV weapon equipped with 48 TKB-1055 missiles with a range of 7 km and a ceiling of 5,000 m, capable of effectively dealing with small targets. The complex can also carry 12 standard 57E6-E missiles with a range of 20 km, to perform regional air defense missions.

According to the military website Militarnyi of Ukraine, the second air defense layer was established by Russia last year, with more than 40 specialized air defense towers built around the capital Moscow from May to September 2025.

The backbone of the air defense network protecting Moscow is about 100 Pantsir-S1 complexes and smaller numbers of Tor missile systems, specializing in dealing with UAVs and cruise missiles. In addition, more than 20 S-400 batteries are deployed for the mission of intercepting cruise and ballistic missiles.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on August 1 that 6,225 Ukrainian UAVs targeted Moscow province in July, most of which were disabled remotely. “780 UAVs were destroyed while approaching the capital,” he said.

DroneBomber, an open source intelligence data analysis account in Ukraine, recorded approximately 1,500 incidents of UAVs detected and intercepted around Moscow province in July.

Of these, about 1,400 aircraft were shot down in the first and second layers of air defense. Nearly 100 UAVs appeared near the third layer of air defense around the Moscow Ring Road, which is considered the administrative boundary of the Russian capital. “Only one UAV entered the airspace of the capital Moscow, equivalent to a rate of 0.07%,” DroneBomber said.

This account does not mention the thousands of UAVs that the Mayor of Moscow said Ukraine launched in July, possibly because the information has not yet been determined.

According to DroneBomber, targets hit in the capital Moscow and the province of the same name in the past two months include the Kapotnya oil refinery, the Dubna Space Communications Center, the logistics center and warehouse of the Wildberries corporation, and a number of industrial parks and residential buildings damaged by falling debris.

“This is almost the entire list. The number is just a drop in the bucket compared to thousands of launches. To put it mildly, this result is disappointing. It’s almost laughable,” DroneBomber said.

Drone Bomber believes that Ukraine has failed if it pursues the strategy of forcing Russia to fire and waste all anti-aircraft missiles around Moscow province. “Their defense system still works, the missile arsenal seems to be sufficient and the protective perimeter is still effective,” this account wrote.

If Kiev’s purpose is to find a flight path to help penetrate the air defense network protecting Moscow, the interception map shows that the country’s UAVs approached from all directions but could not find any gaps. “That is an impenetrable belt. Make your own conclusions whether this strategy is acceptable or not,” DroneBomber stated.

AMK Mapping, the

Militarnyi in May also admitted that the number of confirmed successful raids was “still limited”, although Ukraine launched a large number of UAVs against Moscow.

President Zelensky emphasized that every defense network has limitations. “No matter how many air defense systems they have, there will come a time when they will run out of ammunition and we will find the technology to respond,” he said.

Ukraine’s leader also announced that the country’s raid campaign against Russia’s logistics system had caused the enemy to suffer about 12 billion USD in damage. Recent Ukrainian raids have caused fires at a series of oil refineries and oil depots across Russia, causing the country to face fuel shortages.

On August 10, Ukrainian UAVs attacked an oil refinery in the Tatarstan region, killing at least 13 people and injuring 75, marking one of the attacks causing the largest casualties since the beginning of the war.

David Hambling, military technology expert of Forbescommented that DroneBomber’s analysis showed that the capital Moscow and the province of the same name were very well protected, but noted that “the rest of Russia is not like that”.

Mattias Eken, a security and defense expert at the European RAND Research Institute, pointed out that the large territory and scattered energy and military infrastructure make it difficult for Russian air defense to protect all important targets. “They will have to decide which areas to prioritize for protection, making some infrastructure more vulnerable,” he said.

Fighter Bomber, the account of a Russian fighter pilot, also said that the country must accept that it is impossible to protect all vulnerable targets such as oil refineries and fuel tanks with existing methods.