Russians Fret as Video Shows Air Defenses Erected Around Putin's Hometown

Russia's military is deploying multiple S-300 air-defense systems around President Vladimir Putin's hometown, St. Petersburg, after recent drone attacks on the Leningrad region, a video appears to show.

The independent Russian Telegram news channel ASTRA shared a 36-second clip on Tuesday that shows a local resident reacting negatively to numerous S-300 air-defense systems being erected in the area.

"What a cluster****," the man began. "Seems they're placing them everywhere in the region. There we go, there's an S-300... placing all around St. Petersburg. So, guys, we're preparing for the worst."

The local resident captured footage of the missile systems, with one of them blocking a roadway while he attempted to maneuver around it.

Newsweek couldn't independently verify the authenticity of the clip and contacted Russia's Defense Ministry via email for comment on Tuesday.

The clip comes amid reports that Russia's air defenses in the city of St. Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad region are stretched thin as Putin has pulled the majority of his resources to defend his prized residence at Lake Valdai.

On January 18, Ukraine launched a drone attack on a St. Petersburg oil terminal, marking the first time that a drone had targeted Putin's home region since the full-scale war in Ukraine began in February 2022. One of the drones launched in that attack flew over Putin's Valdai residence, a palace located in between Russia's Tver and Novgorod regions, some 250 miles away from the Kremlin. The report came from RBC Ukraine, citing a source in the special services.

A second attack near the city of St. Petersburg overnight on Sunday struck a major gas export terminal in the port Ust-Luga—Russia's largest Baltic port—causing a huge fire and halting fuel supplies. Ukraine's Security Service claimed responsibility for that attack, the Kyiv Post newspaper reported.

The VChK-OGPU outlet, which purports to have inside information from Russian security forces, said on Sunday that, according to its source, recent drone attacks on St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region are due to an "acute shortage of technical means for detecting small air targets and mobile air defense missile systems capable of shooting them down." Newsweek is trying to verify these reports.

Russia's Pantsir-S1 air-defense systems "were deployed to protect a 'particularly important' facility in Valdai," the Telegram channel said, referring to the Russian president's Valdai home; the palace is "a place of personal leisure for Putin, his relatives and friends," according to independent investigative outlet Agentstvo.

"After the start of the war, almost all of the Pantsirs were sent to protect a 'strategically important' facility in Valdai, where the residence of the President of the Russian Federation is located, some went to the combat zone and one complex was 'lost' in 2023, due to an accident in the Leningrad region," VChK-OGPU said.

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