Syria’s armed forces, long dependent on outdated S-200 air defenses, will now receive the modern S-300 system, Russia’s Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu announced on Monday.
“The S-300 is to be supplied to Syria within the fortnight,” Shoigu said in comments published by the Russian news agency Interfax. Now “the Syrian air defense will be able to identify Russian planes,” he added.
Russia’s decision comes one week after its Syrian allies, responding to an Israeli air raid on the coastal province of Latakia, mistakenly targeted a Russian Ilyushin-20 plane, killing the 15 military personnel on board.
Israel said its F-16s had already returned to Israeli airspace by the time the Russian craft was downed and blamed Syria’s armed forces for indiscriminate fire.
But Moscow insisted the Syrians had no capability to determine which plane was friend or foe with their outdated Soviet system.
Israel, which carries out regular strikes in Syria targeting the militant group Hezbollah, is staunchly opposed to the upgrading of Syria’s air defenses.
Syrian servicemen have already undergone training to operate the S-300 system, Russia’s defense minister said on Monday, suggesting the latest incident was the last straw needed to transfer the system to its ally.
The decision, he said, was approved by President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, accused the Israeli pilots of “premeditated actions” over the downing of the Russian surveillance plane last week and warned that the incident would harm relations between the two countries, AFP reported.
“According to information of our military experts, the reason [behind the downing] was premeditated actions by Israeli pilots which certainly cannot but harm our relations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as telling journalists.
Read: Russian plane was shot down by Syrian air-defense unit
Israel admitted that the Syrian missiles is outdated thereby wrongfully shot a Russian plane that is why the Russian answered correctly to Israel that Syrians deserve an updated S300 that can shoot accurately at Israel F16s
Putins strategy to save face is:
1) Give a low end S300 to Syria so the rest of ME thinks we mean business.
2) let Israel knows that this is outdated rigged system (like the kind of BB guns you get in carnivals with a bent tip to insure you don’t hit the target).
3) Behind the scenes ask for some Shekels for the poor souls that died needlessly.
4) provide the correct path and location to Israelis to kill poor Syrian military and. Iranian militias.
With Israeli claims of having over 200 raids on Syrian targets who does this Bafoon (Putin) thinks is kidding? Certainly not the Syrians or Iranians.
Agreed. The S-300 is the last generation, against which the US has probably developed countermeasures which have been handed over to Israel. We’ll see what happens.
Again providing outdated technology to key allies specially when they kniw Russians will be in charge of running it. Why are you giving S400 to Turkey? Thus will be lower end version if s300 and nit much effective against Israel. Keep in mind that there are two versions of S300.
That will put an end to Israel aggression over Syrian Airspace….. for good…..