Russian ballistic missiles sent to Syria/Iran

[anatta]

Russia has just sent Syria the largest shipment of missiles between the two countries to date, the latest delivery between the two allies that could further change the stakes in the Middle East, U.S. officials told Fox News on Wednesday.

The shipment of 50 SS-21 short-range ballistic missiles arrived at the Syrian port of Tartus along the Mediterranean Sea in the past two days, the officials said.

"For someone winding down a war, that’s a big missile shipment," one official said

.

The SS-21, which comes in different types, has a range of roughly 100 miles.

Russia has fired two SS-21 missiles and four longer-range SS-26 Iskander missiles in the past two days into Syria’s Idlib province against "opposition" fighters, according to those officials. It was not immediately clear whether the U.S. was backing any of those fighters.

he Iskander is a nuclear-capable missile and has been deployed to Kaliningrad -- a Russian enclave in the Baltics -- in recent months.

The SS-21 short range missile is called "Scarab" by NATO.

In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Moscow’s plans to scale down its military presence in Syria. Moscow’s aircraft carrier, which had been stationed off the coast of Syria, has returned to Russia.

Still, Russia has approximately 50 aircraft in Syria, including fighter jets, helicopter gunships, and drones.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/0...issile-delivery-to-date-us-officials-say.html

 

[anatta]

A senior Russian diplomat has expressed surprise at an outcry provoked by the new US administration over Iranian missile work, saying Tehran’s missile tests are not violating any UN bans, legally speaking.

“This outcry about Iran’s ballistic missile launches. I was surprised to hear even American experts speaking on CNN and calling it a violation of bans by the UN Security Council,” said Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin in an interview with RT published Tuesday.

He was referring to Resolution 2231 adopted by the Security Council in July 2015 to underpin the landmark nuclear deal inked days earlier between Tehran and the P5+1 group of states, namely Russia, China, France, Britain, the US plus Germany.

The document terminated the provisions of previous UN resolutions, calling on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology.”

Explaining the legal language used in Resolution 2231, Churkin said the document merely “calls” on Tehran not to conduct tests of missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but does not impose any ban on Tehran.

“Those bans were there before, all those bans were lifted,” said the Russian official. “Technically or legally you cannot argue that they are violating any kind of a prohibition.”

He also said no evidence has been provided to support the claims that Tehran’s missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Late last month, Washington’s UN envoy Nikki Haley slammed a missile test by Iran as “absolutely unacceptable.”

US President Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael Flynn also said following the January 29 test that Washington was “officially putting Iran on notice,” claiming that the launch was “in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.”
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/02/08/509622/Russia-US-Iran-Trump

 

[anatta]

One month ago we reported that Russia had deployed S-400 air defense missile systems in proximity to Moscow, which were then put on combat duty. “The SAM combat squads of the Moscow Region aerospace forces have put the new S-400 Triumph air defense missile system into service, and have gone on combat duty for the air defense of Moscow and the central industrial region of Russia,” the Defense Ministry’s Department of Information and Mass Communication told Interfax in early January.

hile the ministry did not explicitly state why the rollout was taking place, it added that “the main task of the anti-aircraft missile troops of the Russian Aerospace Forces is air defense and protecting vital state, military, industry and energy facilities, as well as the Armed Forces troops and transport communications, from aerospace attacks.”

Fast forward one month, when overnight the missile systems in proximity to Moscow got their first real test, when air defense systems around Moscow were put on high alert Wednesday as part of a surprise nationwide combat readiness drill for the Russian Air Force which was meant to "test how prepared Russia is to repel a possible attack.“

“Units of the air defense force responsible for defending Moscow and the central industrial region have been put on highest combat alert,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “The air defense mission involves fully-manned combat crews.”

A part of the test, the ministry added, involved the redeployment of batteries of S-300, S-400 and Pantsir-S air defense systems to backup positions in a simulation of area contamination. The guards of the batteries also conducted anti-saboteur maneuvers and trained to operate in hard terrain.

Russia Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr Fomin said that the drill is part of the surprise Russian Air Force training ordered by President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. It involves 45,000 troops and 1,700 pieces of military equipment, including 150 aircraft and 200 surface-to-air missile launchers. Fomin met foreign military attaches on Wednesday to brief them on the situation.

“This is a surprise exercise and thus not subject to control under the Vienna document or the OSCE documents. No formal notification was required, but we do inform you as a gesture of goodwill,” he said. The snap exercise will last until Thursday, Fomin added. The Russian official said it is meant to test how prepared Russia is to repel a possible attack.“