Russia says it has completed shipping S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Syria’s government and will now begin training Syrian troops to operate them. Though it is possible that this is just an initial tranche of equipment, that is not what Russian officials are indicating and by sending just four transporter-erector-launchers, or TELs, the Kremlin appears to be giving Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad a very minimal capability. We at The War Zone had said this would likely happen after the Russians first announced their plans to deliver the weapons in September 2018. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the announcement at a Russian Security Council on Oct. 2, 2018. Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired the gathering. Russian authorities first announced they would turn over an unspecified number of S-300s to Assad’s regime on Sept. 24, 2018, in the aftermath of a bizarre incident in which Syrian air defenders accidentally shot down one of Russia’s Il-20 Coot surveillance aircraft after an Israeli air strike against targets near the country’s Mediterranean coastline.

“In conformity with the presidential decision, we have begun to carry out a number of measures to reinforce Syria’s air defense systems in order to ensure better protection for our servicemen,” Shoigu reported to Putin during the meeting. “We have completed the delivery of S-300 systems. It included 49 pieces of equipment, including radars, control vehicles and four launchers.” Russia’s Defense Minister also said that the country had begun training Syrian personnel to operate the surface-to-air missile system. It will take approximately three months before Assad’s forces are ready to put their new S-300s into operation, according to Shoigu.

Uliana Solovyova/Sputnik via AP A Russian trailer-mounted transporter-erector-launcher belonging to an S-300 surface-to-air missile system.

He did not specify what type of S-300 system the Russians had delivered. However, Shoigu did say it would have a maximum range of just over 124 miles, which observers noted would be in line with the specifications of the PMU-2 variant using the 48N6E3 missile. The S-300PMU-2, also known as the Favorit, is the most advanced export version of the system that Russia has produced. Separately, Shoigu noted that a unified air defense mechanism would be in place by Oct. 20, 2018. This is likely a reference to Russia’s plan to deliver equipment to Assad’s forces that will allow them to receive Russian identification friend or foe signals and rapidly identify the Kremlin’s aircraft, hopefully reducing the chances of future accidents. Whatever these systems entail, they should also give the Kremlin greater linkages to and situational awareness of the Syrian air defense network's day-to-day operations, as well.

“I would like to note that it is a very timely step and we are very grateful to Russia for its efforts,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem had said in an interview with Russia’s quasi-official media network RT on Sept. 30, 2018. “[The] S-300 is enough to respond to these threats [from Israel].” However, as we at The War Zone have previously noted, it seems unlikely that this will be the case. It seems even less likely if the Russians do not supply any additional S-300 components to Syria in the coming months. There had been reports that Russia might deliver one or more full S-300 regiments to Assad’s forces, which would have included a dozen TELs and would have been potentially able to guard multiple sites simultaneously. With a third of that total, the minimum amount for what Russia considers a battalion-sized element, the system will provide a token capability at best. With a maximum range of around 124 miles, it’s true that a Syrian S-300 system situated in the southern portion of the country near the capital Damascus would be able to reach out into the Mediterranean and even into Israel proper . It would also cover much of Lebanon’s airspace, which Israeli jets routinely use to launch standoff strikes into Syria, but with the same limitations.

But from that position, it wouldn’t be able to cover areas in northwestern Syrian. These include some of the same areas that Israel struck that touched off the entire chain of events leading to the delivery of the S-300s in the first place. The maximum range is a dubious metric to begin with since the systems would only be able to engage high-flying aircraft with specific signatures at the longer distances and only under optimal conditions where their radars have a good line-of-sight to the target. Israeli jets could fly low use hills, mountains, other terrain features, readily available along Syria's southern borders, to help mask their approach. The Syrians will not be able to shoot them down as they take off in Israel, either. On top of that, it’s not at all clear what sort of density of fire four TELs, each of which can have at most four missiles ready to fire at a time, would provide within that coverage area. Russia already has its own S-300s, along with more capable S-400s, in Syria guarding its naval base in the port city of Tartus on the Mediterranean and its Khmeimim air base only slightly further inland. Previous satellite imagery shows a typical setup for TELs for the S-400 system, which are very similar to those for the S-300, grouped very closely together in fours to provide sufficient firepower against potential threats. The site also features a short-range Pantsir-S1 air defense vehicle to guard those launchers. Syria has its own Pantsirs, but only has a limited number of them, which it might not be able to spare to defend even higher priority surface-to-air missile systems.