Russia concedes signing S-300 missile deal with Iran

Russia conceded on Wednesday that it had signed a contract for the supply of highly potent S-300 air defence missiles to Iran two years ago, but said the actual deliveries were yet to commence depending on the "international situation"

"Under the deal signed two years ago S-300 complexes have not been supplied so far to Iran. But the contract is being gradually implemented," a 'highly placed official' of the Federal Service for Military Technical Cooperation, supervising the foreign defence supplies, was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

"Further implementation of the contract to a great extent would depend on the international situation and the decision of the country's leadership," the Russian official said on the condition of anonymity.

Both the US and Israel have been opposing transfer of the S-300 (SA-10, Grumble) air defence missile complexes capable of protecting key installations from massive air strikes including ballistic missiles, to Iran.

Patriot class S-300 missile complexes capable of downing the ballistic warhead of the size of a tennis ball can simultaneously engage six targets to destroy them with a volley of 12 killer missiles. 

Russian S-300 would deprive the US and Israel impunity in case of air strikes on Iranian nuclear installations, suspected of developing nuclear weapons and in the peacetime its power radars could monitor each and every take-off and landing of US aircraft in the American airbases in Iraq and the Gulf, experts say.

Military cooperation with Iran, including the plans to sell S-300 complexes, are elements of Moscow's trade-off in the relations with the West, according to the experts of a local defence think-tank.

"S-300 contract and the whole cooperation with Iran are seen by Moscow only as an instrument in the political trading with the West and not as the means for realising Russia's fundamental defence and commercial interests," Ruslan Pukhov of the independent Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) believes.