MOSCOW: Russia has not yet delivered any S-300 air defense missile systems to the Syrian regime and may hold back from shipping the weapons this year or even indefinitely, Russian media reports said yesterday.
Syrian President Bashar Assad appeared to imply on Thursday that Russia had already shipped part of the highly controversial consignment.
But the Vedomosti daily cited a Russian defense industry source as saying it was unclear if the weapons would be delivered to Syria at all this year while the Kommersant daily quoted its source as saying that delivery was only planned in the second quarter of 2014.
The Interfax news agency quoted an arms export source as saying that any deliveries of the S-300s, were they to take place at all, would be made “no earlier than autumn.” Both sources quoted by Kommersant and Vedomosti said that no delivery of the missiles had taken place yet. The contract was agreed in 2010 and according to Vedomosti is worth $ 1 billion.
Kommersant added that after delivery in 2014, a minimum of another six months would be needed for the training of personnel and tests before the systems were fully operational.
Interfax’s source said that while a delivery in autumn was theoretically possible “much would depend on the situation in the region and the position of Western countries on solving the Syria conflict.”
The source quoted by Vedomosti meanwhile said that while the Russian government is currently insisting in public that the contract will be fulfilled, this does not mean that the actual deliveries will ever take place. According to Interfax, the deliveries could yet be put on hold indefinitely. Its source said this has been the case with Russian Iskander missiles that Syria had wanted several years ago but Moscow had refused to deliver.
Meanwhile, Russia’s MiG aircraft maker said yesterday it plans to sign a new agreement to ship at least 10 fighter jets to Syria.
MiG’s director general, Sergei Korotkov, said a Syrian delegation was in Moscow to discuss the details of a new contract for the delivery of MiG-29 M/M2 fighters. In remarks carried by Russian news agencies, he said Syria wants to buy “more than 10” such fighters, but wouldn’t give the exact number.
Russia has not yet delivered S-300 missiles to Syria
