During a meeting of the so-called Coordination Committee on Air Defense under the Council of Defense Ministers of the CIS member states, the russian Kalashnikov Concern presented its "new" short-range air defense system for "territorial air defense" — the BRD TPVO Krona-E, according to the company's press service.
In reality, russia is attempting to market this system abroad, promoting it primarily as a solution for protecting against various types of UAVs — from critical government facilities and infrastructure to depots and sites along strategic communication routes.
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The primary interceptors for the BRD TPVO Krona-E are reported to be the 9M333 and 9M340.E surface-to-air guided missiles.
Although the russians promote this SAM system as a "new development," it is, in fact, little more than a rebranded version of another system — the short-range Sosna, which itself was developed as a replacement for the Soviet-era Strela-10.
The Sosna can hardly be described as a "modern weapon," given that its concept originated in the previous century, and it was first unveiled as far back as 2013 — twelve years ago.
Essentially, the so-called "new" Krona differs from the Sosna mainly in having ten launch tubes instead of twelve, and in being compatible with two types of missiles — the 9M333 and the newer 9M340.E.
The Krona system was first showcased at the IDEX 2025 exhibition earlier this year.
It is also telling that, despite being officially adopted in 2019, the Sosna system has never been seen in operational service — a fate that may well await the Krona too.
Earlier, Defense Express reported that russia failed to "push" its S-500 system to India, which instead opted to purchase five additional S-400 systems with localized production.
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