Russia withdraws its air defense missile systems from the Kuril Islands
And it is likely to withdraw the remaining military contingent soon
S-300Vs on the Kuril Islands, which are recognized as occupied territories by Russia, played the role of the main umbrella over military facilities and long-range missile launchers.
The Russian Federation has deployed its S-300V anti-aircraft missile systems, which have been deployed since 2020 on the Iturup and Kunashir islands. At the same time, the task of these air defense systems was to protect military facilities held by the Russian Federation on this territory from air and missile attacks.
We are talking about units of the 18th Machine Gun and Artillery Division, the Yasny air base with the permanent deployment of Su-35s, and the Bastion systems, which, as experience has shown, are used by Russia not only for anti-ship defense, but also for strikes on ground targets.
At the same time, such forces have been permanently deployed on these Kuril Islands over the past few years in order to maximize their occupation. It should be noted that the United States, the EU, and Ukraine consider these islands to be the Northern Territories of Japan, which were occupied by the USSR and later by Russia after 1945.
At the same time, the withdrawal of the S-300V, according to the Japanese newspaper Mainichi, based on an analysis of satellite images, indicates not only a lack of air defense systems that the Kremlin is trying to transfer to the front or to protect other regions. The fact is that the S-300V system is classified in Russia as a missile defense system and is supposed to protect all other military facilities on these islands.
Without it, the entire defense system collapses, and it is therefore quite logical that Moscow has withdrawn other major forces from these territories, or plans to do so in the near future.
The article also notes that a significant amount of weapons in the form of tanks and artillery systems were also taken from the Sakhalin storage bases.
In other words, in strategic terms, Russia is reducing its presence in the occupied territory to a nominal one. At the same time, it is far from certain that it will be able to return to the 2020 state in the foreseeable future.
