Kaliningrad Move Hints at Russian Struggles

S-400 air defense missile systems roll at the Red Square during the Victory Day military parade general rehearsal in Moscow on May 7, 2016. The Kremlin has likely moved a number of strategic air defense systems from its Baltic Sea base at Kaliningrad to the current front lines in Ukraine to “backfill recent losses,” the British Defense Ministry said on Sunday.

Russia is pulling air defense systems from its western exclave of Kaliningrad, indicating Moscow is struggling to weather the toll of its ongoing war in Ukraine, according to a Sunday assessment from the British Defense Ministry.

The Kremlin has likely moved a number of strategic air defense systems from its Baltic Sea base at Kaliningrad to the current front lines in Ukraine to “backfill recent losses,” the British Defense Ministry wrote in its latest update.

“As its most westerly outpost and bordered on three sides by NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] member states, Russia sees Kaliningrad as one of its most strategically sensitive regions,” the ministry added.

Russia bases its Baltic Sea Fleet at Kaliningrad, which is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on NATO’s eastern flank. The isolated oblast is reachable through a contentious strip of land known as the Suwałki Gap, linking Russian ally Belarus to Kaliningrad.

The Suwałki Gap has been intermittently described as NATO’s weak point and the alliance’s most fortified boundary. Lithuanian defense minister, Arvydas Anušauskas, told Newsweek earlier this year that Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and its allies were bolstering defenses around the Gap.

The Russian Defense Ministry appearing to “accept additional risk” around Kaliningrad by cutting its air defenses and moving the systems to Ukraine “highlights the overstretch the war has caused for some of Russia’s key, modern capabilities,” the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry evaluated in its update.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian government for comment via email.

The transfer of valuable, advanced air defense systems from Kaliningrad follows an “uptick” in losses of Moscow’s SA-21 system around late October, the ministry wrote in its update.

The SA-21 Growler, as it is designated by NATO, is an advanced mobile surface-to-air missile system, also known as the S-400 Triumf. The long-range S-400 is considered broadly equivalent to the U.S. military’s Patriot air defense system, and the gold-standard of Russian air defense.

It is the upgraded version of Moscow’s Cold War S-300, which has also been used in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022. At the start of this year, Russia had around 96 S-400 mobile surface-to-air missile systems, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

However, after Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive on Russian forces, the Ukrainian military upped its focus on the S-400—deployed around the Moscow-controlled Crimean peninsula.

Experts told Newsweek in mid-September that the S-400 had initially performed well across Ukraine, but was increasingly failing to fend off targeted Ukrainian strikes.

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