The Russian-made Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile system (SAM), stolen by the United States in Libya and secretly transported to Germany, may fall into the secret Zone 51, military expert Alexei Leonkov says in the Zvezda publication.
In his opinion, this air defense system is unlikely to be transported to the Wright-Patterson Air Force base (Ohio), where the United States National Aerospace Intelligence Center is located, as Popular Mechanics suggested in January.
According to the expert, Pantsir-S1 will arrive at the Tonopah airbase. “The Tonopah airbase is part of the well-known Area 51, which includes several training grounds and airfields created for secret military aircraft testing programs,” Leonkov said.
The expert recalls that earlier in the “Area 51” were many samples of Soviet military equipment.
In January, The Times, citing its own sources, reported that the United States had kidnapped a Russian-made Pantsir-C1 in Libya in July 2020. According to the publication, the air defense missile system was removed from the battlefield and is currently located at Ramstein airbase in Germany. The newspaper writes that Pantsir-C1 “was delivered safe and sound.” The Times claims that the corresponding operation was carried out to prevent the air defense system from getting to the smugglers of weapons and not being used to destroy civilian aircraft.
Commenting on this message, Vice-President of the Academy of Military Sciences (AVN) Sergei Modestov called the hit of the air defense system in the United States as a negative fact, which will not have serious consequences for Russia, since the equipment supplied for export is prepared for such situations.
