Netanyahu to visit Putin in a bid to stop his S-300 missile sale to Syria
Netanyahu to visit Putin in a bid to stop his S-300 missile sale to Syria.
( Call me paranoid. I don’t believe that the S-300 sale is the reason Netanyahu insisted on and received a meeting with Putin. Something much bigger is afoot. – JW )
Moscow’s decision to sell those weapons to Syria was first revealed by debkafile on May 7.
Our sources now add that the prime minister’s chances of averting the sale are extremely slim. A series of prominent figures have already tried talking the Russian president out of the sale and failed, starting with US Secretary of State John Kerry on May 7, followed Friday May 10 by British premier David Cameron who saw Putin in Sochi and German Foreign Minister Guido Westernwelle who met his Russian opposite number Sergei Lavrov in Warsaw.
They all warned the Russian leader that the delivery of S-300 missiles to Syria would touch off an arms race in Syria and the Middle East with disastrous consequences.
Lavrov told reporters: “Russia is not planning to sell S-300 to Syria. Russia has already sold them a long time ago. It has signed the contracts and is completing deliveries in line with them of equipment which is anti-aircraft technology.”
Rejecting all their arguments, Putin said his government would stand by all its commitments to the Syrian ruler Bashar Assad and defend his regime. After Israel’s air strike against Damascus on May 5, nothing would now stop the S-300 deliveries.
The Russian president, in a phone call he put in to the Israeli premier on May 7 when the latter was visiting Shanghai, warned Israel against any further attacks on Syria.
He later spurned the approaches by Western leaders by stating that Moscow would never permit another US-led NATO air campaign against Assad like the one that overthrew Muammar Qaddafi in Libya in 2011. He added that Russian arms sales to Syria and Iran were Moscow’s response to the large arms packages US Defense Minister Chuck Hagel brought to Israel and US Gulf allies in the last week of April.
The S-300 is designed to shoot down planes and missiles at 200-km ranges.
Israel is concerned that Moscow may decided to send the six S-300 batteries carrying 144 missiles due for Syria along with Russian missile and air defense specialists. They will officially be described as instructors for training Syrian crews in the use of the sophisticated anti-air weapons. But they will also be available for operating the missiles effectively for downing Israeli Air Force planes striking targets in Syria and Lebanon. Israel will be forced to think twice before attacking the S-300 batteries for fear of hitting the Russian officers. Putin is therefore placing a severe constraint on Israel’s operational freedom by spreading an anti-air missile cover over the Syrian, Hizballah and the Iranian Basij forces fighting for Bashar Assad.
Since the chances of dissuading Putin to abandon this strategy are just about nil, the best Netanyahu can hope for by his face-to-face with the Russian president is a limited accord on ground rules for averting an Israeli-Russian military clash in Syria.
WarSclerotic 
May 11, 2013 at 6:30 PM
Paranoia is putting two and two together and knowing something’s up 🙂 Its healthy 6th sense.
Something much bigger is certainly afoot. Everything is pointing towards June in my head. Of course I have been wrong before.
Many sources have over the past year have indicated a substantial Russian military presence inside Syria. The UK media also reported that Russians were manning Syria’s air defence systems.
See here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/23/syria-crisis-russian-military-presence
The same sources are saying that the Russian presence is ramping up.
IMO the sale of the S-300 has already been completed along with other Russian hardware. If so then a decision has to be made quickly as to strike.
However even if the sale has been completed it will take months for the readying, packaging, shipment, training and deployment in Syria, unless the Russians are giving Assad full version S-300 and not export versions along with fully trained Russian personnel.
May 11, 2013 at 7:13 PM
Vulpus pilum mutat non mores. It seems the Russians never learn from their own mistakes. In 1939 they signed the non-aggression pact with Hitler and today they are buddies with Iran, Hizballah, Hamas and Syria. But I guess you can expect that from the leaders whose roots are in the regime that dealt with the Kronstadt rebellion,the collectivization, the Ukrainian famine, the Kirov murder, the great Purge of the thirties,the Show Trials, the Gulags, the Katyn massacre and the Doctors’ Plot. They have no clue whom they are dealing with just as they did not know then until June 22,1941.
May 11, 2013 at 8:56 PM
Great words.
May 11, 2013 at 9:35 PM
Reblogged this on servehiminthewaiting.