Putin is using fear to mobilise the masses

There was nothing subtle about it, as cranes lifted truck-based Pantsir-S1 air defence systems onto the roofs of the sprawling Defence Ministry building on Frunzenskaya Embankment and another structure in the Taganka neighbourhood, south-east of the Kremlin. As a former president and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church both warned of the risks of Armageddon, one would be tempted to assume that Vladimir Putin was deeply rattled. Yet much of this is more performative than anything else.

The Pantsir is a short-to-medium range gun-and-missile point air defence system that can handle targets from drones to cruise missiles, and which has shown its value in Syria. However, so far the Ukrainians have not demonstrated the capacity to attack anywhere near Moscow, so at first glance this seems a serious excess of caution.