Global Security Newswire

A Russian company might have frozen a recently disclosed deal to provide Syria with S-300 air-defense batteries, Russia Today reported on Wednesday (see GSN, May 11).

The freeze -- described to the Russian business publication Vedomosti by defense sector insiders -- reportedly affects a $105 million arrangement made public days ago in a yearly statement by armaments firm Almaz-Antey.

S-300 shipments to Syria are anticipated to take place by next year, but orders now have a lower priority “after a direct order from above," Vedomosti said, referring to information from a pair of unidentified insiders.

Such a freeze might constitute a conciliatory Russian gesture to Israel and the United States, according to certain observers. The commentators compared the possible move to Moscow's 2010 nullification of a pledge to supply S-300 air defenses to Iran. Syria, unlike Iran, faces no international ban affecting Russian business arrangements (Russia Today, June 27).

Meanwhile, China is expected no sooner than 2017 to begin receiving shipments of Russia's more advanced S-400 air-defense units, RIA Novosti on Wednesday quoted an arms sector insider as saying.

“An export version of the S-400 Triumph air defense missile will have been developed by 2017 with the Chinese to be the first clients,” the insider stated.

The system is intended to be used against ballistic and cruise missiles and other aerial threats (RIA Novosti, June 27).