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Yandex Tries to Hide Russian Missile Site Near St. Petersburg—By Putting a Forest Over It
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Russian tech company Yandex is attempting to obscure a missile battalion located near Kronstadt Island close to St. Petersburg.
Finnish news outlet Yle reported on the activity on August 17, noting that the service altered map imagery to mask the facility.
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Rather than utilizing standard blurring techniques on the location, the software developers used digital editing to clone and overlay images of a forest directly over the military site.
Yandex previously relied on blurring sensitive areas, but in this instance, the platform selected to entirely conceal the presence of the military infrastructure.
Despite the masking on the Russian service, the missile battalion remains clearly visible on Western satellite mapping platforms, including Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
The concealed location near Kronstadt was previously used to store Bastion coastal defense missile systems, along with associated radar systems and electronic reconnaissance equipment.
A electronic warfare unit was also operational on this portion of Kotlin Island, with positions established on its northwestern edge.
On August 16, 2026, Ukrainian forces struck Russian Bastion coastal missile positions in temporarily occupied Crimea, targeting launch sites and a deployment area for a scarce and costly system that Russian troops had used to fire supersonic Oniks and hypersonic Zircon missiles against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
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