MOSCOW. March 9 (Interfax-AVN) - Two battalion sets of new Pantsir-S air defense missile-and-artillery systems have been deployed on combat duty to protect Moscow.
"The new Pantsir-S air defense systems arrived in places of their permanent deployment in the Moscow region from the Ashuluk range in the Astrakhan region upon the successful initial live-fire drills," the Russian Defense Ministry's press service and information department told Interfax-AVN on Tuesday.
Upon the deployment of the new missile-and-artillery systems on combat duty, air defense formations of the Aerospace Forces will have five Pantsir-S air defense regiments providing air defense of Moscow, it said.
"Another battalion set of Pantsir-S systems will be delivered to an air defense formation of the Aerospace Forces stationed in the Moscow region before the end of this year. In addition, new Pantsir-S systems will be supplied to air defense formations of military districts in 2016," it said.
That will be done within the framework of equipping the Aerospace Forces with modern and prospective air defense missile systems, the report said.
"The primary objective of air defense missile regiments of the Aerospace Forces is to provide air defense and to cover top-ranking governmental and military command facilities, industrial and energy sites, groups of the Armed Forces and transport routes from aerospace attack means of the enemy," the report said.