There was nothing subtle about it, as cranes lifted truck-based Pantsir-S1 air defence systems onto the roofs of the sprawling Defence Ministry building on Frunzenskaya Embankment and another structure in the Taganka neighbourhood, south-east of the Kremlin. As a former president and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church both warned of the risks of Armageddon, one would be tempted to assume that Vladimir Putin was deeply rattled.