Last week, a motorist driving in Russia’s Leningrad region came across something unusual. Men had blocked off the road. In front, a large olive-green military vehicle with cigar-shaped missiles on the back was reversing and then parked up on a snowy verge. “Fuck! It’s an S-300,” the driver exclaimed, before adding: “So guys, let’s prepare for the worst.”
This surreal roadside encounter took place outside St Petersburg, more than 620 miles (about 1,000km) from the border with Ukraine and Russia’s near two-year all-out war. The Kremlin’s security services were apparently taking no chances. They were deploying the S-300 air defence missile system in order to protect Peter the Great’s imperial capital from small but devastating drones.
