Reports circulated in Russian state media on Monday that Moscow will soon give advanced air defense systems to Syria, but Kremlin officials said publicly that a final decision has yet to be made.
“We’ll have to wait to see what specific decisions the Russian leadership and representatives of Syria will take,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted as saying by TASS, according to Reuters.
Lavrov went on to say that any move to provide Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with S-300 anti-missile batteries would be made public.
“There is probably no secret about this, and it can all be announced (if a decision is taken),” he said.
Other Russian state media, citing anonymous military sources, reported earlier Monday that Russia will supply Syrian government forces with the S-300 systems “very soon.” Military officials reportedly told the newspaper Kommersant that Russia would give Assad the systems for free, adding that Israel would suffer “catastrophic consequences” if it tried to destroy them.
If the reports are accurate, Syria will receive the PMU-2 version of the S-300 system, which is capable of intercepting high-altitude ballistic missiles and shooting down advanced fighter jets. Delivery of the missile systems to Syria could reduce Israel’s air superiority in the region.
Plans to give S-300 batteries to Syria follow a strike on suspected Syrian chemical weapons facilities by the U.S., Britain and France earlier this month. The strike removed any obligation the Kremlin may have had not to give Assad, its closest Mideast ally, advanced anti-missile systems, Lavrov said Monday.
Until now, Russia has refrained from giving S-300 systems to Syria due to pressure from Israel, which sees them as an unacceptable threat to its air superiority. Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013 cancelled a planned sale to Damascus in response to Israeli protests but warned that he would reconsider if the U.S. attacked Assad’s regime. Russia has sold the S-300 to Iran over objections from Jerusalem and Washington.
Israel will likely move to destroy any S-300 deployed in Syria, upsetting a fragile truce between Jerusalem and Moscow, according to many Israeli defense experts. The deployment of S-300s in Syria has been a concern for two decades, and a strike “will happen,” says Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli military intelligence chief.
“If I know the air force well, we have already made proper plans to deal with this threat,” he told Bloomberg. “After you remove the threat, which is basically what will be done, we’re back to square one.”
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