Alwaght- Russia will supply Syria with an S-300 air defense system within two weeks in response to the downing of a Russian Il-20 plane amid an Israeli air raid on Syria.
“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 situation has changed, and not due to our fault” RT citied Russian defense ministry as saying in statement said on Monday.
Moscow accused Tel Aviv of failing to inform Russia about its impending attack on targets in Syria, which resulted in a downing of a Russian Il-20 plane with 15 people on board by Syrian return fire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the defense ministry to take several measures in response to the incident, the statement added.
Arguably, the most concerning thing for Israeli regime will be the delivery to Syria of an S-300 anti-aircraft system, which will boost Syria’s capabilities to deny Tel Aviv's access to its airspace.
The Russian military will also supply better control systems to Syrian Air Defense Troops, “which are only supplied to the Russian Armed Forces,” defense chief Sergey Shoigu elaborated. This will allow integration of Syrian and Russian military assets, allowing the Syrian to have better targeting information. “The most important thing is that it will ensure identification of Russian aircraft by the Syrian air defense forces.” Potentially it would also expose Israeli aircraft tracked by Russian radar stations to Syrian fire.
The third measure announced by the Russian defense ministry is a blanket of electronic countermeasures over Syrian coastline, which would “suppress satellite navigation, onboard radar systems and communications of warplanes attacking targets on Syrian territory.”
Shoigu said the measures are meant to “cool down ‘hotheads’ and prevent misjudged actions posing a risk to our service members.” He added that if such a development fails to materialize, the Russian military “would act in accordance to the situation.”
