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The original was posted on /r/worldnews by /u/Super_Camel_3254 on 2023-11-14 10:45:08.
As Cargo Flights Leave Kaliningrad, Air Defence Systems Disappear
Submitted 2 years ago by bot@lemmit.online [bot] to worldnews@lemmit.online
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 2 years ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On November 9, the UK’s Ministry of Defence wrote that in order to maintain coverage over Ukraine, it was “highly likely” that Russia would need to reallocate surface-to-air missile systems from elsewhere.This prompted Bellingcat to investigate.Bellingcat has found a marked change at two air defence sites in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) imagery since the reported cargo flights, indicating that at least some of Russia’s S-400 batteries have indeed been moved away from their previous locations in the Kaliningrad Region.
The cloudy weather conditions in Russia in November mean that optical satellites have struggled to get good imagery of Kaliningrad, which is why S1 SAR images — which can see through clouds with little issue — are useful in this case.
This means that such a method would be ideal if Russia moved material from a location in Kaliningrad and put nothing in its place, but would be less effective if the empty space was occupied by new objects.
For example, this effect was visible at an S-300V4 site on the Kuril Islands near Russia’s de facto maritime boundary with Japan, where launchers and radars appeared to have been replaced by cargo trucks.
Due to the low resolution of S1, and the possibility of the negative returns being related to factors other than the removal of the materiel, Bellingcat tasked high-resolution SAR imaging by Umbra to the area.
From this imagery, it appears plausible that air defence systems at locations A (northern battery) and B may account for at least some of the increase in heavy military cargo flights going in and out of Kaliningrad.
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