This is the moment Russia puts its missile defence system to the test successfully thwarting a simulated large-scale enemy aerial attack.

The military exercise was held at the Kapustin Yar range in the Astrakhan region in northern Russia and the footage of the drill was released by the Russian Ministry of Defence last Friday, 29th October.

The Ministry said in a statement on Thursday, 28th October, that the exercise involved the use of large-scale air-defence units and anti-aircraft missile systems at long, medium and short ranges.

A large scale simulated attack was neutralised by a layered air defence system made up of a variety of complexes including the S-300V4, Buk-M3 and Tor-M2.

The simulated attack came from high-speed missiles, cruise missiles and attack helicopters.

The footage shows the moment the various Russian weapons complexes respond to the threat and fire several rounds of anti-air missiles.

The first layer of the defence system was made up of S-300V4 long-range anti-aircraft missile system battalions which took out aeroballistic missiles descending from an altitude of more than 150 kilometres (93.2 miles)

The S-300V4 missile defence system is considered to be one of the most effective defence systems in the world. They cost an estimated USD 300 million (GBP 219 million) per unit and have been sold to several militaries including China and Turkey.

The second layer of defence was composed of Buk-M3 medium-range air defence systems and the Tor-M2 short-range anti-aircraft missile systems battalion.

These two systems provided protection from enemy cruise missiles flying at extremely low altitudes.

The Buk missile system is a self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile system that was developed by the Soviet Union in 1980.

The Buk is capable of bringing down cruise missiles, smart bombs, fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles and has an operational range of 30 kilometres (18.6 miles).

The Tor missile system is a short-range surface-to-air missile system designed for destroying helicopters, aeroplanes,precision-guided, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

According to the Ministry the Tor system “carried out combat launches against group air targets simulating the raid of a “swarm” of unmanned aerial vehicles of a conventional enemy at a distance of up to 15 kilometres (9.3 miles).”

Right at the back of the defence system combat vehicles from the “Typhoon-Air Defense” unit were located to take down targets at extremely close range of under six kilometres at altitudes below 3,500 metres (11,482 feet).

More than 1,000 servicemen and 300 units of weapons and military equipment were involved in the training exercise and according to Ministry all targets were successfully hit.