10:20 GMT, August 19, 2009 defpro.com | Israel has broached the issue of Russia’s sale of S-300 mobile surface-to-air missiles (SAM) to Iran. The subject was discussed in the Black Sea town of Sochi during a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Israeli President Shimon Peres, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported today.

Peres brought up an agreement which had been signed between Russia and Iran on the sale of several S-300V anti-aircraft systems. Warning about a dangerous shift in the “delicate balance” of power in the entire region, Peres asked the Russian government not to carry out delivery of the systems. Peres emphasised that Israel has “clear proof that Russian weapons reach the hands of terrorist organisations, especially Hamas and Hezbollah, which receive them from Iran and Syria.”

According to Haaretz, Medvedev promised to review the decision to sell Iran anti-aircraft missiles. He explained that Russia opposed selling weapons that violate the “delicate Middle East balance” and that it had no intention of changing this policy. However, so far no official statement on this matter has been made by the Russian government.

It has been unclear in the past whether the air defence systems had already been delivered to Iran. In November 2008, the Iranian Defence Minister, Mustafa Najjar, claimed that “the S-300 air defence system will be delivered to Iran on the basis of a contract signed with Russia in the past.” However, according to Mark Fitzpatrick, former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-proliferation, Russia has not yet delivered those systems to Iran. "It seems clear that Russia entered into a contract with Iran for the S-300, but it's also clear that the Russians have not delivered on it and are holding on to it as potential negotiating leverage with the United States over ballistic missile defence and possibly other issues," Fitzpatrick said earlier this year.
A detailed study by Abdullah Toukan and Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, published in March 2009 and summarised by defpro.com (see http://www.defpro.com/daily/details/312/), depicted that the integration of S-300V systems into the Iranian air defence would represent a major threat to any Israeli attempt to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities with an air strike. Should the Iranians employ the S-300, the authors of the study assume aircraft losses of 20 to 30 per cent.

As the S-300 is said to be capable of even intercepting stealth-technology targets, the conventional fighter aircraft which Israel currently operates would be no match. S-300s are considered one of the world's most effective all-altitude regional air defence systems, comparable in performance to the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot system.

The latest version of the S-300 family is the S-300PMU2 Favorit, which has a range of up to 195 kilometres (approx. 120 miles) and can intercept aircraft and ballistic missiles at altitudes from 10 metres to 27 kilometres.