"RTI Systems and AFK develop and produce long-horizon radars for the Voronezh stations of Russia's missile attack warning system, some 200 miles from the border with Ukraine.
Putin previously considered the Voronezh radars the centerpiece of the country's ballistic missile warning system, even awarding the RTI System designer the State Prize of the Russian Federation.
In early June, the president even used his confidence in the missile defense system as an underhanded threat to Europeans.
"If, God forbid, it comes to some strikes, then everyone should understand that Russia has a system of SRPN - a missile attack warning system," Putin told the audience at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
"The United States [has it too]. Nowhere else in the world is there such a developed system. There is no developed system in Europe. In this sense, they are more or less defenseless,"
However, the system has proven vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks in recent weeks.
In late May, Ukrainian media reported that a drone had struck a Voronezh radar system in the Russian city of Orsk. Earlier in the month, a Ukrainian drone hit a similar radar station in the southwestern region of Krasnodar.
According to the Telegram Channel of Cheka-OGPU, while Novitsky's arrest was framed as Russian courts dealing with a serious instance of fraud, it is more accurately viewed as an expression of dissatisfaction with RTI's radar stations.
"The Russian authorities have set a course to imprison all those who were related to certain elements of the current air defense system," the Telegram post reads.
It also claimed that Vladimir Shukshin, who supervised activities relating to defense at Novitsky's other company, AFK Sistema, is reported missing."
.
You really, really don' wanna go missing in Vlad's Russia.
