The firestorm ignited by Saturday’s Ukrainian attacks on Moscow had died down when Pavel Zarubin, a journalist close to the Kremlin, pointed out an uncomfortable truth to Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov: “Everyone is asking an inevitable question. We have these powerful bombs… So what? It seems you can just nibble and bite at a nuclear power.” Hours earlier, a barrage of Ukrainian drones had breached the capital’s defensive rings. The bombs struck not only Russian energy facilities and military factories but also some residential buildings. At least three civilians were killed in the chaos.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported shooting down 556 drones heading toward Moscow between Saturday night and Sunday morning. This marks one of the largest Ukrainian attacks against the Russian capital since the start of the war, a city where bombs killed a civilian for the first time in September 2024 and whose vulnerability was highlighted when a drone struck one of the Kremlin palaces on the eve of Victory Day in 2023.
The Kremlin followed suit on Monday with another wave of conventional bombs that injured several civilians in Dnipro and Odesa, in eastern and southern Ukraine. A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had claimed that Kyiv’s actions were “justified” by the resumption of Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities after the brief Victory Day truce. At least 24 people were killed in a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv last week.
Moscow is the most heavily fortified city in Russia. Authorities have deployed several rings of anti-aircraft batteries between Podolsk, about 25 miles south of the capital, and Serguiyev Posad, some 45 miles northeast of the megalopolis. The most recent of these, and one of the densest, was completed between 2025 and this year.
Some of these weapons are in plain sight of all Muscovites. In the city center, anti-aircraft guns and radar domes are deployed on the rooftops of administrative buildings, primarily for the protection of the Kremlin. And outside the city, visible from the road, other anti-aircraft systems can be seen mounted on towers and old structures, and even on an old artificial ice rink.
In addition, powerful electronic jammers are throwing geolocation systems in the capital into disarray — especially for taxi drivers — and authorities are cutting off connectivity to blind drones that navigate to their targets via the internet. In fact, since last year, Russian SIM cards automatically deactivate outside the country and must be manually activated when re-crossing the border. The goal is to prevent Ukrainian drones carrying them from connecting to the internet once inside Russian territory.
“This Pantsir, which I located in 2023, was very busy this Sunday,” exclaims Mark Krutov, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) specializing in open-source military intelligence (OSINT), while analyzing photos of the batteries that were deployed in Moscow at the weekend. This expert has been studying the capital’s defenses for years using satellite and street-level images from Google and its Russian counterpart, Yandex. In fact, he highlights how the blurring of maps at the request of the intelligence services of the country in question makes this kind of work easier for OSINT analysts.
“Unlike Google, Yandex also blurs images of Israeli military sites, while Google provides even higher-resolution photos. I’m sure Iran knows the locations, but for an amateur, this provides better clues than a clear image,” Krutov explains in a post, where he points out that the search engine does the same with Russian installations.
By applying geolocation to photos and videos shared by residents after the weekend attack, Krutov has written about how the exchange of fire between Ukrainian drones and Russian anti-aircraft systems could have unfolded.
The Ministry of Defense has fortified the capital with all types of air defenses. These include the Tor-M2 short-range surface-to-air missile system, capable of hitting a target at an altitude of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) while flying at 3,600 kilometers per hour (2,240 mph), and the Pantsir self-propelled defenses, which combine short-range rockets with anti-aircraft guns. Another OSINT account, Jembob, has counted up to 89 Pantsir systems around the capital, arranged in several concentric rings.
These defenses are complemented by other measures against high-risk threats, such as ballistic missiles and enemy bombers. Among these, the S-400 systems stand out, equipped with different types of surface-to-air missiles to engage large targets at long ranges within a radius of 40 to 400 kilometers (25-250 miles). However, they are ineffective against low-flying drones, exhibit minimal radar signature, and, more importantly, cost only a few thousand euros compared to the high cost of an anti-aircraft missile.
Protecting Putin
One of the most heavily fortified points in the region is the Novo-Ogaryovo district, where one of Putin’s official residences and the homes of other important members of the elite are located.
The security surrounding the Russian president is extreme. One example of this is another of his official residences, a mansion located in Valdai, in the Novgorod region between Moscow and St. Petersburg, where he has at least 27 anti-aircraft systems deployed, according to Krutov.
Moscow accused Kyiv of attempting to assassinate Putin at that location in December 2025. Peace negotiations had stalled, and the Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have shot down more than 90 drones. Ukraine refuted the accusation, explaining that its drone strike targeted other military objectives in northwestern Russia. U.S. intelligence later concluded that Kyiv did not attempt to bomb Putin’s residence at any point.
Authorities were awaiting Ukraine’s response. On May 13, four days before the bombing, Moscow’s Anti-Terrorism Commission prohibited “media outlets, emergency services, and citizens” from sharing images of drone strikes and their aftermath on social media. The administrative penalty for a resident ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 rubles, or between $40 and $70.
Despite the ban on recording the attacks, residents flooded the internet with videos expressing their surprise that drones were flying freely over a region that had remained virtually unaffected by the invasion of Ukraine in the more than four years since the start of the war.
This astonishment was summed up by journalist Zarubin when he reminded the Kremlin that Moscow possesses one of the greatest destructive capabilities on the planet.
“The Russians have discovered the stability-instability paradox,” analyst Sergei Radchenko quipped on X. Sunday’s bombing — which occurred days after Putin announced the renewed readiness of the Sarmat, his first post-Soviet ballistic missile — reinforced the theory of Glenn Snyder, a professor of security and international relations, who deduced that the theory of mutually assured destruction reduces the risk of conflict between nuclear powers, but simultaneously intensifies clashes with non-nuclear countries because it would be irrational to respond with weapons of mass destruction.
“A nuclear power cannot be threatened; its very existence cannot be threatened,” Putin’s spokesman replied expressionlessly to Zarubin’s question. “This is what gives us confidence, and this is the foundation of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear deterrence is an integral part and a cornerstone of our overall national security,” Peskov added, implying that such attacks against Moscow are annoying, but not a threat to the country that could be met with a nuclear escalation.
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