Nyet! Now Russia Won’t Sell Badass Missile to Syria

American pilots can officially exhale. If they’re called upon to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria, they won’t have to outmaneuver one of the most advanced air-defense systems in the world. That’s because of a fateful decision made by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s last major international benefactor. 

Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, ended nervous Washington and Pentagon speculation today by telling the ITAR-TASS news agency that the Kremlin isn’t actually going to sell the S-300 air defense missile to Assad. Whatever other arms deals Russia will honor with Syria, the S-300 won’t be included. 

U.S. officials had worried to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that the Russians were prepared to ship Assad as many as 144 operational 3-000s, along with six (presumably mobile) launchers. Syria already has about five times the air defenses that Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya did, packed within a fifth of Libya’s territory, something that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey has warned about for over a year. 

It’s unclear how formidable those air defenses actually are. (For a sober, wonky exploration of the subject, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has you covered.) What’s very clear is that the S-300 would be an instant upgrade. It ranges 125 miles a shot; and can shoot down missiles as well as fighter planes. However unenthusiastic the U.S. military is about a no-fly zone right now, confronting the S-300 would make it instantly worried about losing many, many pilots. “This is a system that scares every Western air force,” Lexington Institute defense analyst Dan Goure once remarked. 

This is getting to be something of a pattern with the Russians and American adversaries. In 2010, thanks in part to American entreaties, Russia canceled a long-planned sale of S-300s to Iran. Had the Russians gone through with the deal, the Israeli and-occasionally-American planning for a bombing run on Iran would be immediately become more complicated. (So, kind of a mixed blessing?) The Iranian misfortune now extends to Iran’s proxy in Damascus, although who knows if Assad ever actually had a deal for the air-defense missiles — Syria has tried and failed to buy S-300s for decades. 

Nor is it clear that Washington played a role in stopping the sale. Max Fisher of the Washington Post speculates that Lavrov’s counterpart, John Kerry, might have pressed the issue in advance of their meeting this week in Moscow. (They are do have kind of a bromance going.) Regardless, a Syria without the S-300 serves the Obama administration’s interests, as theoretically the vulnerability should make Assad more pliable to international pressure to step down and abandon his two-year massacre of the Syrian uprising. 

Of course, without Syrian S-300s, the administration still faces rising pressure from legislators to take over Syrian airspace and Americanize the conflict, particularly after last weekend’s Israeli bombing runs. Those pilots, ironically, are now freer to take a mission the military wants to avoid. So — thanks, Russia?