Russia postpones Iskander missiles export

Russia embargoed export of Iskander missile systems until 2016 due to insufficient production capacities, the weaponry producer said Wednesday.

"Production of these missiles is a bottleneck. The Votkinsk plant (in northwestern Russia's Udmurt republic) has been working to the limits of its capacity," Itar-Tass news agency quoted a deputy director of the KBM Machine-building Design Bureau as saying.

The official said that all potential clients have been informed about the delay, as he was attending an arms expo in the city of Zhukovsky outside Moscow,

The KBM cannot swiftly increase Iskander production for the Russian Armed Forces to 12 systems a year required by the Defense Ministry, he said.

The Iskander tactic missiles system is an advanced ground-to-ground first-strike complex with a range of 500 km.

Currently the KBM supplies the Russian army with two to three Iskander systems a year.

On Monday, Kazakhstan asked Russia for a possible delivery of its Iskander-M missile systems to Russia, according to Konstantin Biryulin, deputy director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technological Cooperation.

"There has been a request from Kazakhstan but no decisions have been made as of yet," the Itar-Tass reported quoting Biryulin.

Last December, Russia said it has deployed Iskander-M missiles along the borders with NATO countries. The missiles deployed are said to have a range of 400 kilometers, which thus do not fall under a category of the middle-range missiles banned by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between Moscow and Washington

Egypt Asks Russia for Anti-Tank Missiles, Warplanes - Request comes after Saudis gave Egypt $2 billion for Russian weapons

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has asked Russia to supply Egypt with high-tech fighter jets, attack helicopters, and anti-tank missile systems, according to regional reports.

 

Sisi made the request in Moscow Tuesday during a meeting with his counterpart, Russian President Vladimir Putin, who met with the Egyptian leader to discuss expanding arms exports.

 

The request for these advanced weapons comes just months after the Saudi Arabian government donated $2 billion to Egypt to finance the purchase of Russian-made weapons.

 

Sisi’s reliance on Moscow for these arms is another sign that the Egyptian government is growing more distant from Washington, which, under the Obama administration, has slashed aid to Cairo and cut back on key weapons shipments that help the country combat terrorism.

 

Sisi is likely seeking to cement a weapons gap left by the United States’ abrupt refusal to fulfill its arms deals with Cairo following the ousting of former Muslim Brotherhood-backed President Mohamed Morsi.

 

During the powwow with Putin, Sisi reportedly asked for top-line equipment, including MiG29 fighter jets, Kornet anti-tank missile system, Kamoc Ka-25 attack helicopters, Mil Mi-28 attack helicopters, and various transport helicopters, according to an Arabic report on the meeting published by Youm7.

 

While the State Department did not respond to requests for comment on the meeting, regional experts told Submariners World that the weapons request is no surprise given the Obama administration’s efforts to distance itself from Cairo.

 

“Putting aside how disconcerting it is that Saudi Arabia—which is so angry with Putin’s support to Assad—is earmarking funding for Russian weapons, a potential deal comes as little surprise,” David Schenker, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Program on Arab Politics, told the Free Beacon.

 

“The Egyptians have a lot of Russian legacy systems in their current arsenal,” Schenker explained. “Washington was hoping to phase it out, and fully standardize on U.S. equipment, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

 

Egyptian leaders in the new secular government are still fuming over the Obama administration’s efforts to chill relations, Schenker said.

 

“The Egyptians were stung by the hold on U.S. weapons transfers [which were] related to Human Rights concerns,” Schenker explained.

 

At least 10 U.S. planes earmarked for Egypt are still docked at Fort Hood in Texas following moves by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) to block the transfer as punishment for Sisi’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and its news organ, Al Jazeera.

 

The cutoff in U.S. arms came at a critical juncture for Egypt, which has had trouble combatting terrorists affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist groups in the Sinai region near Israel.

 

“In the midst of a serious counterinsurgency campaign in the Sinai, and with a growing threat on the Libyan border, Egypt has not surprisingly come to the conclusion that it needs to diversify,” Schenker said. “The U.S. is no longer viewed as a reliable supporter.”

 

Schenker and his WINEP colleague Eric Trager warned in March that Egyptian “mistrust of Washington” was forcing a turn to Russia, which has foreign policy goals different that that of the U.S.

 

Sisi’s request for Russia’s Kornet anti-tank weaponry is perhaps the most significant. This is the same system Russia gave to embattled Syrian President Bashar al Assad, who, in turn, has allowed Hezbollah to access the system.

 

“Hezbollah, which had received these from Assad’s Syria, used these to great effect in 2006 against Israeli armor in Lebanon,” said Schenker.

 

“It’s unclear why Egypt needs these systems” and it could lead Israel to “complain, quietly, that this constitutes an erosion of” its qualitative military edge (QME) over its regional neighbors, which the United States has always promised to ensure.

 

However, Israel is not likely to press the case given its warmer relations with Egypt since the secular government took hold.

 

Questions also remain about how exactly the Egyptian military would integrate Russia’s MiG planes into its fleet of American-made F16 jets.

 

“This will prove both costly and a logistical mess,” Schenker warned.

Iraq Invaded By Russians

Eight months ago Russia believed it had landed a new big customer. Iraq had agreed to buy over $4 billion worth of Russian arms. Recently Russia announced that it had received the first payments and had ordered manufacturing to begin on the aircraft and missile systems included in the deal. But in Iraq anti-corruption investigators (and their supporters in parliament) warn that the Russian deal might still be dead. That’s because a chunk of that $4 billion was given back to Iraqi officials as bribes to get the deal approved. This is pretty normal in Iraq but increasingly under attack by those advocating clean government, or political opponents of those who got the bribes.

 

Among the systems included in the deal are 30 Mi-28NE attack helicopters and up to fifty Pantsir-S1 (SA-22) mobile anti-aircraft systems. The helicopters take a while to manufacture which was why Russia waited until a down payment arrived before getting started. 

 

The Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft system entered service four years ago, after more than a decade in development. Pantsir-S1 Development began in the 1990s, but was sporadic for nearly a decade because there was no money. Meanwhile, several Arab nations have been persuaded to order over 200 Pantsir-S1 vehicles. This encouraged Iraq. Pantsir-S1 is a mobile system, each vehicle carries radar, two 30mm cannon, and twelve Tunguska missiles. The 90 kg (198 pound) missiles have a twenty kilometer range, the radar a 30 kilometer range. The missile can hit targets at up to 8,400 meters (26,000 feet). The 30mm cannon is effective up to 3,200 meters (10,000 feet). The vehicle can vary but the most common one carrying all this weighs 20 tons and has a crew of three. Each Pantsir-S1 vehicle costs about $15 million.

 

Russia is replacing its 250 Mi-24 helicopter gunships with 300 of the more recent Mi-28s. The Mi-24 is a twelve ton chopper based on the Mi-8/17 transport. The U.S. did the same thing with the AH-1, developing it from the UH-1 "Huey." But rather than adopt the two seater (one pilot behind the other) approach of the AH-1 and AH-64 Apache, the Mi-24 could still carry troops or cargo in the back and was not as nimble as the AH-1. The 11 ton Mi-28 looks more like the AH-64. That's because, by the end of the 1960s, the Russians realized that the AH-1 design was superior. For several years there was intense competition, to decide which of its two new helicopter gunship designs (the Ka-50 and Mi-28N) to make standard. The Mi-28N is a more capable helicopter, costing about the same as the earlier American AH-64A ($15 million each).

 

The Mi-28N "Night Hunter" is an all-weather, night attack version of the 1980s era Mi-28A, with added FLIR (night vision sensor), night fighting optics, and a two man crew. The basic Mi-28 is an 11.6 ton helicopter that can carry 1.6 tons of rockets and missiles. The aircraft also has a 30mm cannon. The cockpit for the two man crew is armored and the helicopter has missile countermeasures (chaff and flares), GPS, head up display, laser designator, and other gadgets. The Mi-28N has a top speed of 300 kilometers an hour and a one way range of 1,100 kilometers. It can carry up to 16 anti-tank missiles (with a range of up to eight kilometers). The helicopter can also carry 80mm rockets, bombs, or fuel for additional range. The Mi-28 has been around in small quantities for two decades but the Mi-28N is the most advanced model, on par with the American AH-64D gunship (which is a little lighter). The first version of the Mi-28N was shown in 1996, although the manufacturer, Mil, wasn't ready to offer for sale until 2004.

 

The Russians are also pushing their large line of armored vehicles and artillery systems. Russia has a good reputation with these and the prices are attractive. Another appealing Russian custom is a more comfortable attitude towards bribes, which Iraqi officials are quite fond of. Dealing with American supplies can often be a problem when it comes to helping Iraqi officials skim some of the sales price. The Russians believe that the Americans, angry at losing sales to Russia, are behind all this corruption nonsense.

Top Russian Diplomat Explains Reasons for Syrian Arms Sales

In the past two weeks, the U.S. and its allies have done just about everything short of getting down on their collective knees and begging Russia to stop delivering weapons to the Syrian government. President Vladimir Putin has received visits this month from three of the most powerful statesmen in the western world — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on May 7, British Prime Minister David Cameron three days later and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu three days after that. Along with U.S. President Barack Obama, who spoke to Putin by phone on April 29, they have all implored the Russian leader to stop arming President Bashar Assad‘s regime.

However, last week it became clear that Russia was going ahead with S-300 sales immediately despite Kerry’s overtures. This week, the New York Times reported that Russia is delivering not only the sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Syria but the dreaded Yakhont “ship killer” missiles, which would make it a lot more painful for any foreign navies trying to intervene in Syria or provide supplies to the rebels by sea.

Why has Russia apparently decided to ramp up its arms supplies to Damascus, despite the West’s pleas? TIME spoke last week with top Russian diplomat Andrei Klimov, the deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Russian parliament, who explained it as Moscow hedging its bets.

Weapons systems like the S-300, he said, “would simply set the right conditions” for negotiating Assad’s departure. On May 7, Kerry and Putin agreed to begin those negotiations at an international summit in the coming weeks. “To put it simply, the S-300 will put a damper on any desire to attack Syria from the air if that is the real intention of our partners” heading into these negotiations. Russia’s intention in all of this is to avoid making the same mistake it made with Libya, says Klimov, who has travelled to Syria during the civil war there to assess Russia’s options. In 2011, the Kremlin — then led by Putin’s more liberal protege Dmitri Medvedev — was a lot more sympathetic to the international outrage against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was then trying to crush his own violent rebellion. The U.S. and its allies convinced Medvedev not to block a U.N. resolution against Gaddafi, allowing it to pass a vote in the U.N. Security Council.

As Putin sees it, that resolution was taken way beyond its stated purpose of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya — it also opened the door for a full-scale military intervention. Under the U.N. mandate, the U.S. and NATO began flying bombing raids against Gaddafi’s military convoys, which were then moving toward the rebel-held city of Benghazi with the express aim of “cleansing” its revolutionary populace. After fending off that assault, NATO air power continued to provide the rebels with a clear military advantage.

Within weeks, Gaddafi’s army was routed, his convoy was bombed from the air while fleeing the Libyan capital, and the dictator himself was captured hiding in a drain pipe in his hometown. A video of rebels beating, insulting and finally killing Gaddafi soon appeared on YouTube. Putin was furious over this turn of events — seeing it as a blatant violation of Libyan sovereignty and a betrayal of Russia’s willingness to trust the west’s intentions. He has not gotten over the slight. “What we really do not want is to allow the same mistake as with Libya,” Klimov says, “when we believed we were getting one thing and got something totally different.”

Russian weapons will give Assad a good chance of defending himself if any Western powers decide to continue the aerial assaults that took place early this month. The strikes on Syrian targets on May 3 and May 5, apparently carried out by Israeli war planes, also spurred Russia to step up its arms shipments to Assad, Klimov says. “When we see these bombings taking place in Syria, which seem by all accounts to be coming from Israel, we realize that a sovereign government has the right to self-defense,” he says. “In our understanding, these deliveries do not violate any international agreements. Rather, they forbid any aerial attacks against Syria from taking place with impunity.” 

Russia points out that its weapons sales to Assad do not violate any international agreements. Unlike with Libya, Russia and China have vetoed every attempt in the past two years to impose a weapons embargo against Assad in the U.N. Security Council. And the Kremlin has no intention of backing away from that position, says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs and a top foreign policy expert in Moscow. “If the position on providing arms to the rebel side does not change, then Russia will not back away from any [arms] contracts with Assad,” he says. “And at this point we only see movement in the direction of providing more arms to the rebels, not less.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Senators Robert Menendez and Bob Corker introduced a bipartisan bill to pressure the Obama Administration to provide weapons to “vetted” rebel forces in Syria. “To change the tipping point in Syria against the Assad regime, we must support the opposition by providing lethal arms,” Menendez said in a statement accompanying the legislation, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will take up on May 21. “This effort coupled with Russia’s willingness to participate in talks for political transition will give us the best opportunity for a better outcome.”

Talks over a political transition are expected to start early next month. As Putin and Kerry agreed, representatives from Assad’s government and from the rebel forces will be able to attend the conference. The aim is to map out a political transition to end the civil war, which has already claimed some 80,000 lives. “What gives me serious pause,” says Lukyanov, “is that the US and Russia can agree on whatever they want, and maybe they will. But its pompous to think that the people fighting in Syria will obey that decision, put down their arms and go home.”

Still, Lukyanov says it is a sign of progress that Russia and the West have even agreed to a framework for such a conference. They were previously at a deadlock over the issue of whether Assad or his representatives could take part in the transition to a new Syrian government. Putin has always insisted that the ruling regime must be at the table, as well as Assad’s other major ally, Iran. 

“Now in Moscow there has appeared a tender hope that the West is finally starting to hear what we’ve been telling them all along,” says Klimov. “This conference will be where we can make real progress, if not a compromise, then at least the conditions for a compromise.” And just in case it falls apart, Russia is providing its ally with a radar-guided insurance policy.

Proof That Russian Missiles Are In Gaza

On October 12th Israeli surveillance cameras spotted the distinctive contrail of an anti-aircraft missile being fired from Gaza at an Israeli helicopter. The missile missed, either because the missile was defective or because of the anti-missile systems carried by all Israeli aircraft operating over Gaza worked. The media reported that it was an older SA-7 Russian type missile but no one could be sure.

Earlier this year Israel spotted, in Gaza, some of the 480 Russian Igla-S (SA-24) shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles that had been sold to Libya and stolen from military warehouses during the rebellion there last year. Older SA-7s were taken as well. Some SA-7s and SA-24s have shown up in Gaza in the hands of Islamic terrorist group Hamas. Most Israeli and NATO helicopters and aircraft are equipped with missile detection and protection (lasers or flares) systems. Such systems on Israeli AH-64 helicopter gunships operating over Gaza are thought to have defeated several SA-24 attacks in the last year but, unlike the recent attack, there was no photographic proof.

Last year Russia supplied Libyan missile serial numbers, which were distributed to counter-terrorism officials worldwide with the admonition to be vigilant. Apparently the SA-24 thieves sold many of the SA-24s to Iran, which in turn gave some to Hamas and Hezbollah (another Iran backed Islamic terror group in Lebanon).

The SA-24 entered service eight years ago and is considered one of the most dangerous Russian portable anti-aircraft missiles. The SA-24 is a post-Cold War upgrade of a design that was introduced at the same time as the American Stinger. SA-24 weighs 19 kg (42 pounds) and fires a 11.7 kg (26 pound) missile for up to 6,000 meters (19,000 feet). The 14.3 kg Stinger fires its 10.1 kg missile out to 8,000 meters, but both systems have similar resistance to countermeasures and a warhead of about the same size (2-3 kg/4.4-6.6 pounds). The SA-24 in the hands of terrorists could bring down helicopters and airliners taking off. The SA-24 is a heat seeker but it does not just go for the engine exhaust but rather any part of the aircraft. This makes the SA-24 more dangerous because if they just go for the engine exhaust these missiles often do little damage.

Against jet fighters or large transports with powerful engines, the missiles that just home in on heat cause some damage to the tailpipe but usually fail to bring down the jet. This was first noted during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war where the Egyptians fired hundreds of SA-7s at Israeli A-4 light bombers. Most of the A-4s, with their 11,187 pounds of thrust engines, survived the encounter. Larger jets, like the F-4 and its 17,000 pound thrust engines, were even more difficult to bring down when only the engine exhaust was targeted. Smaller commercial jets, like the 737 or DC-9 (each using two 14,000 pounds of thrust engines) have proved vulnerable. But a 757 has much larger engines with 43,000 pounds of thrust and the 747 is 63,000. Moreover, the rear ends of jet engines are built to take a lot of punishment from all that hot exhaust spewing out. Put a bird into the front of the engine and you can do some real damage. But these older missiles homed in on heat and all of that is at the rear end of the engine. Since the 1970s, about 40 commercial aircraft have been brought down by Russian portable anti-aircraft missiles (usually older SA-7s), killing over 500 people. But more recent missile designs go for any part of the aircraft, although engine heat is still used to find the aircraft.