In November 2015, Russia has announced that Egypt has requested to purchase a wide range of armaments and combat equipment. Egypt remains one of Russia’s key partners in North Africa. The direct deliveries of Russian-made military hardware to Egypt made up $1.345 billion in 2000-2014.

At the same time, Russia has confirmed talks for the delivery of Russian-made S-300VM air defense missile systems and 9M83M surface-to-air missiles to Egypt.

The S-300VM also called Antey-2500 (NATO reporting name SA-23 Gladiator\Giant) is a Russian-made anti-ballistic missile system designed and manufactured by the Russian Company Almaz-Antey.

There's two variants of vehicles, the 9A83ME launcher unit (SA-23a Gladiator) with four 9M83M/ME missiles container-launcher tubes and the 9A84ME loader/launcher (SA-23b Giant) with two missiles 9M82M/ME container-launcher tubes. These tubes are raised to the vertical for missile launch and are carried horizontally for travel.

The S-300VM 9M82M/ME missile is intended to defeat tactical, theater and medium range ballistic missile, as well as aerodynamic targets at a range of up to 200 km to a maximum altitude of 30 km. This missile has a maximum speed of 4,500 m/sec.