Satellite imagery analysed by The Barents Observer indicates that at least two dozen mobile S-300 and S-400 systems were withdrawn from Sevmash shipyard air defense in Russia around Severodvinsk since 2024. The change leaves the naval-industrial belt around Sevmash and Zvezdochka thinner than it was a year ago.
The two now largely abandoned sites are the Coastal Missile Battery on Yagry Island and the Coastal Missile Defence Battalion at Mironov Hill. Mironov Hill lies about 12 kilometres south-west of the inlet leading to the Sevmash and Zvezdochka shipyards, where Sevmash is Russia's only shipyard capable of building nuclear-powered submarines and Zvezdochka is Russia's largest facility for repair, modernisation and refit of submarines.
Yagry Island positions
The Yagry battery consists of two positions. One, known as Yagry North, sits on the northern shore of the Northern Dvina estuary; the other, Yagry Island Central, is a few hundred metres from Severodvinsk's urban boundary.
Until sometime after July 2024, Yagry North housed six surface-to-air missile launchers in combat readiness. Earlier satellite imagery identified those launchers as S-300 systems. More recent imagery shows Yagry North as abandoned, with the two tower-mounted Flap Lid fire-control radars and the reserve missile canisters that once sat there gone from the site.
Sevmash and Zvezdochka
The two positions fit into a wider defensive network that Russia built during the Cold War around the shipyards and the Belomorsk Naval Base. In the post-Soviet era, responsibility for the area rested with the 1528th Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, part of the 45th Air and Air Defence Forces Army within the Northern Fleet, now subordinated to the Leningrad Military District.
Yagry Island Central has not hosted operationally deployed S-300 or S-400 systems since the summer of 2022. Satellite imagery from 2025 shows around a dozen replenishment missile canisters still stored on a hardstanding outside one of the larger garages, but the source says it is unlikely those canisters still contain missiles.
Russia's air-defence drawdown
The withdrawal also fits a broader pattern. The systems have most likely been redeployed to southern Russia, the Moscow region or occupied parts of Ukraine, as Russia runs short of air-defence missiles after repeated waves of Ukrainian drone attacks. The same imagery suggests some launch vehicles could still remain inside garages at Yagry North, yet the site itself appears abandoned, which leaves the exact reconstitution of the air-defence shield unresolved.
For Sevmash and Zvezdochka, the immediate fact is simpler: two air-defence positions that once guarded Severodvinsk now show the signs of a pullback, and the open question is where those mobile S-300 and S-400 systems went next.
