Russia May Sell S-300s to Iran

ILNA: Russia may scrap its ban on S-300 anti-aircraft missile sales to Iran, said Ruslan Pukhov, who heads a Russian defense think tank.

“The S-300 ban was a political decision and these systems are not actually subject to sanctions,” Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow, said in an interview today. “If the Syrian regime is changed by force or if Russia doesn’t like the outcome of a peaceful transition to a new government, “it most likely will respond by selling S-300s to Iran.”

Then-President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree prohibiting the sale of Russian weapons, including S-300s, to Iran in 2010 after the United Nations imposed sanctions against the Islamic republic. Iran has sued Russia for breach of contract.

“Resuming S-300 shipments to Iran may be a very timely decision.” said Pukhov, who also sits on a Defense Ministry advisory board.

Due to the export ban on S-300 exports to Iran Russia lost about $1 billion dollars, according to Pukhov’s think tank. Russia built Iran’s $1 billion Bushehr atomic plant, the country’s first, and the country has said it would like to order new Russian-made nuclear power stations.

After shipments of S-300 were stopped in 2009, Iran also canceled talks on buying 40 TU-204 passenger aircraft, which would have added about $3.5 billion of revenue, CAST says.

President Vladimir Putin may resume shipments to Iran in retaliation for the U.S. selling weapons to Georgia and at the same time to promote Russia as an arms exporter, Pukhov said.

“Russia needs to bolster its image as an exporter as a decline in weapons exports is inevitable” because the country “is fulfilling its contract obligations in arms trade quicker than it gets new contracts,” he said.

Russia has signed export contracts worth $5.7 billion this year, up from $3.3 billion in the first half of 2011, Putin said. It shipped $6.5 billion of defense equipment overseas in the first half of 2012, up 14 percent from a year earlier.

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