Media Line:
Russia’s deployment in the coming weeks of advanced the S-300 missile defense system in Syria will limit air strikes carried out by Israel and the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State but not stop them entirely, according to defense analysts.
“On the geopolitical level, the provision of the S-300 to Syria would certainly be an escalation by Russia in terms of the threat picture which it presents to Israel, most obviously, but also all the other western and Gulf state air forces which operate over the region,” Justin Bronk, a Research Fellow and Editor at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies (RUSI) in London, contended to The Media Line.
“It would mean that Israeli jets would be under much more serious threat when conducting operations close to the Syrian border, whether over Lebanon or the Mediterranean,” he added, noting that the “S-300 has a longer range than any of the air defenses which Syria currently operates.”
