It appears Israel has paid a huge price for last week’s attack on Syria which led to the accidental “friendly” fire downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane with 15 personnel on board as the door could now be forever shut on striking targets in Syria with impunity. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has announced plans to deliver to its advanced S-300 air defense system to Damascus within two weeks.
Prior plans to deliver the system, which is considered vastly more effective and can strike at a greater range than Syria’s current S-200 and others, were nixed after Israeli threats that delivery would constitute a “red line” for which Israel must act.
The Russian MoD acknowledged this and said the situation has “changed” upon announcing its intent to follow through on what Syria has already purchased: “In 2013 on a request from the Israeli side we suspended the delivery to Syria of the S-300 system, which was ready to be sent with its Syrian crews trained to use it,” the MoD statement said.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said early Monday, “A modern S-300 air defense missile system will be supplied to the Syrian Armed Forces within two weeks. It is capable of intercepting air assault weapons at a distance of more than 250 kilometers and hit simultaneously several air targets.”
Significantly, Syria’s systems will be integrated with Russian systems via the S-300, in order to prevent instances of “blind” firing (or failure to have friend or foe identification capabilities).
Russia had in previous statements blamed Israel for the last Tuesday incident in which a Russian Ilyushin-20 reconnaissance plane was accidentally brought down by an aging Syrian S-200 defense system after Russia had scrambled its jets to respond to an attack by four Israeli F-16s on Syrian government targets.
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