Free Republic

Moscow places S-400 'Growlers' in Syria's Latakia base, in an escalation that places Ben-Gurion Airport within range. Russia has revealed in photographs that it has deployed a highly advanced anti-missile system in western Syria, that is capable of downing planes taking off in Tel Aviv. The S-400 anti-missile system, known to NATO as the SA-21 "Growler," was shown to be stationed in the Latakia Airbase on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean Sea in photographs released by the Russian military, reports the Daily Mail on Thursday. In the past there have been Arab media reports of Israeli airstrikes in Latakia...

The S-400 started its way in 1999 as the S-300PMU3, developed by Almaz Science and Production Association. Russian defense officials claimed in 2006 the missile has been inducted in late 2006 and was due to become operational later in 2007. Suffering from teething problems, this milestone has been delayed three years, allowing designers to work on the 'baseline system', awaiting the completion of the full capability version, by early 2010. Russia plans to buy up to 200 launchers (each with four missiles) by 2015, and phase out the older S-300 and S-200 systems. This would mean deploying at least 18...

Russian long range ballistic missiles for S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile systems will go into serial production in the autumn, a leading missile manufacturer said on Friday. Earlier media reports said the S-400 missile system was incomplete as long range ballistic missiles, among others, had not been adopted for it. "On December 26, 2009 the preliminary tests were finished and the missile was put forward for state tests," Kommersant daily quoted the general director of Almaz-Antei, Igor Ashurbeili, as saying. "In the third quarter of 2010 we should finish them, along with combat duty launches, and then put it [the missile]...

The Russian S-400 Triumph air and missile defense system was officially inducted into Russian army service – the first two systems have entered operational service with the air defense regiment stationed at the Military Space Defense joint command in Elektrostal, the Moscow Region with additional two scheduled to be deployed by the end of 2010. More systems will be delivered later, along with next generation S-500 currently in early development stage. The Russian Air-defense command is hopeful to achieving full operational capability protecting strategic sites throughout Russia with the new systems by 2015.The S-400 started its way in 1999 as...

Russia is getting another five S-400 (also known as the Triumf/Triumph or SA-21) missile battalions in the next year. Russia already has two battalions, with the first one entering service two years ago. Belarus is buying the S-400, and part of a battalion was sent to the North Korean border recently (to make a political point, not that the Russians fear a missile attack from North Korea any time soon.) Within the next six years, Russia plans to buy 18 S-400 battalions, while exporting as many as possible. An S-400 battalion has eight launchers, each with four missiles, plus a...