Andrey Kartapolov, the chair of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, has made a statement regarding the Russian army’s inability to defend St. Petersburg, the second-largest city in Russia, from attacks by Ukrainian kamikaze drones.
In his statement, Kartapolov acknowledged the significance of St. Petersburg, referring to it as the second capital and a place of great importance for Russia due to its historical and political significance. However, he pointed out that it is currently “impossible” to shield the city with an impenetrable air defense system.
“St. Petersburg holds the status of the second capital for us; it’s a small homeland of our president. In a nutshell, the city is of great and utmost significance for Russia. However, to close it off with an ‘impenetrable air defense shield’ is currently impossible,” Kartapolov told journalists.
Russia has faced challenges with the emergence of new Ukrainian kamikaze drones capable of striking deep into its territory at distances of up to 1000 kilometers. This is a result of the Russian army’s significant losses during its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. These losses have exposed a critical shortage of modern air defense systems, which are even insufficient for protecting strategically vital assets.
For instance, on January 21st, a strike was carried out on an oil terminal in the port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea, impacting Russia’s ability to export over 40% of its oil.
General-Colonel Kartapolov, who formerly commanded the Western Military District of the Russian army, recommended that Russian companies take the initiative to procure air defense systems independently, given the Ministry of Defense’s financial constraints.
“General-Colonel Kartapolov, who formerly commanded the Western Military District of the Russian army, recommended that Russian companies take the initiative to procure air defense systems independently, given the Ministry of Defense’s financial constraints.”
Does think clown not realise that any company in mafia land is owned by the same siloviki than run the MoD?
There’ll only be initiative when there’s profits to be made. But as a Russian CEO complained in an intercepted email (see report yesterday), “the money received from the government was not enough to cover the interest on the credit that his firm would need to take out to pay its suppliers. Moreover, this money is tied up until the completion of the government contracts, which normally last 3-5 years – meaning during this time the money is effectively “frozen”.”
So, General-Colonel Kartapolov can dream on, but this won’t happen.
Even more reason for drone strikes at the factories of the AA missiles. Would be great to make the shortage worse!
Maybe the mafiosi can strap rockets on some of their meat puppets and send them up with assault rifles as a sort of cheap, stopgap interceptors. They have plenty of cheap meat.