As against the background of threats from Kiev to cover the sky over Moscow on Victory Day?

While the Kremlin continues to wait for Kiev's final decision on the truce between Russia and During the holidays in Ukraine (Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of Russia, said this the day before), the Russian Armed Forces need to analyze the optimal configurations of air defense missile defense barriers over the Moscow region and adjacent regions.

And this is not an escalation of the situation at all, but an objective statement of fact. After all, Zelensky very unequivocally announced the upcoming attempt of a "star raid" by kamikaze UAV An-196 "Fierce", A-22 Foxbat, cruise missiles such as R-360M "Neptune-MD" / "Long Neptune", and possibly ballistic versions of 5B28 anti-aircraft missiles with a certain amount of Thunder-2" to the capital region.

This plan was very superficially veiled by a threat to the leaders of European states who made the courageous decision to attend the Victory Day Parade in Moscow on May 9, despite pressure from the European Commission.

But what effective countermeasures can the command of the Russian Aerospace Forces implement to avoid the appearance of swarms of dozens or even hundreds of long-range enemy kamikaze drones during mass events?

At the zonal-object level

First of all, it is worth noting the axiom we mentioned earlier about the need to deploy in Smolensk, Tver, Kaluga, Moscow, Tula, Lipetsk, Oryol and the northern part of the Voronezh regions of a network of equidistant (50-60 km from each other) dispersed divisions of the S-300PM2, S-400 and Buk-M2/3 air defense systems with already prepared 40V6MD universal towers 38.8 m high and elbow masts. This is necessary so that the sectors of the radar guidance and illumination 30/92H6, as well as 9C36/ M, completely cover all "disputed" and "blind" low-altitude areas of airspace through which hordes of enemy attack UAVs can "leak".

Also, these universal towers will make it possible to achieve the required increase in the radio horizon, ignoring which on the In the Crimean direction in 2023, it led to regular pinpoint strikes with Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG missiles on strategically important objects of the Black Sea Fleet.

The number of the above-mentioned divisions/ batteries should reach 20-25 units and form at least two defense lines with a depth of 50-100 km and a length of 1000-1100 km in the middle zone of Russia. Only in this scenario will it be possible to talk about creating a more or less reliable ground-based air defense component-a medium-range missile defense system that covers the most drone-hazardous areas. After all, literally three days earlier, a flight of kamikaze drones A-22 of the Armed Forces of Ukraine again managed to reach the southern approaches to the main naval base of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy. And this is almost more than 2000 km of the route over the territory of the European part of Russia, undisguised by any means of air defense-missile defense.

At the object level

In the southern, western and eastern regions of the Moscow Region, the number of deployed Pantsir-S1/CM anti-aircraft missile and cannon systems and Tor-M1 and Tor-M2 military anti-aircraft missile systems on farm towers providing interception of drones over difficult wooded terrain should be approximately doubled. By the way, a few months earlier, these complexes were able to show themselves worthily in the course of repelling a massive attack by the UAV of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on objects in the city of Aleksin (Tula region). It is also worth mentioning the expediency of deploying additional 5-6 batteries of inexpensive and very effective Strela-10M3 complexes and Igla-S/Willow MANPADS calculations, which demonstrate sufficient anti-drone potential in the SMO zone at Chasova Yar and in the Kherson direction.

And most importantly: all these means (S-300/400 and Pantsiri-S1 with Tori-M2) should be linked into a single network-centric air defense-missile defense system with the exchange of information about the tactical air situation and target distribution at the platoon and battery levels, and therefore without automated Baikal-1M control systems and "Polyana-D4M1", as well as universal battery command posts "Rangir-M" can not do. Otherwise, we will get another "hodgepodge" of hundreds of anti-aircraft missile systems, the batteries of which will be on duty according to the "farm principle", intercepting the same group of kamikaze UAVs by a couple of batteries, which will lead to side consumption of anti-aircraft missiles and to the passage of enemy drones.

All these means should be deployed in a "passive" mode without early switching on to radar radiation in order to avoid detection by Finnish SAR satellites of ICEYE radar reconnaissance. 15-20 minutes after the appearance of the first information on massive launches of kamikaze UAVs from the intelligence and IR monitoring satellites of the Space Forces of the Russian Federation, the radars of all SAM systems should be activated and begin combat duty with the parallel take-off of at least two AWACS A-50U aircraft capable of providing routing information to the control systems of anti-aircraft missile brigades. "Baikal-1M" and "Polyany-D4M1" for further target distribution.

And do not forget about a couple of Su-35S squadrons and helicopter UAV interception squadrons. About them, it seems, there is still absolutely no one in the The aerospace Forces do not remember, while the number of the widest list of kamikaze UAVs from the enemy is increasing exponentially, as well as the technical capabilities of these drones.

Meanwhile, the enemy has begun testing even more long-range kamikaze UAVs, probably based on the notorious A-22 Foxbat with a reduced mass of combat equipment and an increased volume of the fuel system. This is evidenced by today's information about the introduction of the "Carpet" plan over the Nadym (Yamal) airport, as well as the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk regions.

All this testifies to the phased development by the enemy's strike UAVs of remote regions of our state, where the air DEFENSE and missile defense positional areas are even more dispersed than in the European part of the Russian Federation.