Russia, after Netanyahu visit, backs off Syria S-300 missile supplies
Andrew Osborn, Reuters, May 11 2018
MOSCOW – Russia is not in talks with the Syrian government about supplying advanced S-300 ground-to-air missiles and does not think they are needed, the Izvestia daily cited a top Kremlin aide as saying on Friday. The comments, by Vladimir Kozhin, an aide to Pres Putin who oversees Russian military assistance to other countries, follow a visit to Moscow by Netanyahu this week. Russia last month hinted it would supply the weapons to Syria, over Israeli objections. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the strikes had removed any moral obligation Russia had to withhold the missiles, and Russia’s Kommersant daily cited unnamed military sources as saying deliveries might begin imminently. But Kozhin’s comments, released so soon after Netanyahu’s Moscow talks with Putin, suggest the Israeli leader’s lobbying efforts have, for the time being, paid off. Izvestia cited Kozhin as saying:
For now, we’re not talking about any deliveries of new modern systems.
The Syrian military already had “everything it needed,” Kozhin added. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call:
Deliveries were never announced as such, but we did say after the strikes that of course Russia reserved the right to do anything it considered necessary.
The missile system, originally developed by the Soviet military but since modernized and available in several versions with significantly different capabilities, fires missiles from trucks and is designed to shoot down military aircraft & theatre ballistic missiles. The Syrian government relies on a mixture of less advanced Russian-made anti-aircraft systems to defend its air space. Russian media on Friday were actively circulating a video released by the Israeli military which showed an Israeli missile destroying one such system on Thursday in Syria, a Russian-made Pantsir S-1 air defense battery.
After Netanyahu Visit, Russia ‘Not in Talks’ With Syria to Supply S-300 System
Noa Landau, Haaretz, May 11 2018
Russia is not in talks with Syria about supplying the Assad regime with its S-300 advanced air defense system and does not think they are needed, Vladimir Kozhin, an aide to Pres Putin, was quoted as saying on Friday in the Russian newspaper Izvestiya. Kozhin oversees military assistance to other countries. The comments follow Netanyahu’s visit to Moscow this week, who presented to Putin “Israel’s obligation and right to defend itself against Iranian aggression, from Syrian territory.” The Syrian army has for years sought to obtain the S-300 system to counter Israeli air superiority, and Israel has in turn lobbied the Kremlin to refrain from supplying them. Iran received its first S-300 batteries in 2016, nearly a decade after Tehran paid for it.