Russia's S-300 Surface-to-Air Missiles Do Not Work

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Daniel Michaels and Rajesh Roy, Collateral Damage in Strike on Iran: The Image of Russia's Arms Industry; Iran's air defenses, made in Russia, stopped few if any missiles. Wall Street Journal, Oct 29, 2024, at page A6.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/w ... g-image/ar-AA1t40y9

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Israel’s airstrikes early Saturday didn’t just destroy critical Iranian military infrastructure. They also battered the reputation of Russian military equipment, which has already been pummeled by poor performance during Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Iran’s Russian-made air-defense equipment stopped few if any of the missiles that Israel launched from 100 jet fighters, according to U.S. and Israeli officials. Among Iran’s losses in the strikes were its three Russian S-300 air-defense systems. Israel earlier this year hit Iran’s only other S-300.

The destruction comes atop similar strikes on S-300s by Ukrainian forces fighting Russia, plus even more embarrassing losses for Moscow. Kyiv has hit more-advanced S-400 systems, including strikes in May and in August that destroyed components or entire air-interceptor complexes.

The S-400, first deployed in 2007, is Russia’s most sophisticated air-defense equipment, its answer to the U.S. Patriot system. Western security analysts have been concerned for years that it significantly weakens the long-held air superiority of countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and their allies. The S-300 has been repeatedly updated since its introduction in the late 1970s.

Both Russian systems are used by some of Moscow’s closest allies, including China and Belarus, and its biggest arms customers, including India, Vietnam and Algeria.

These countries don’t necessarily face potential foes whose offensive capabilities are equivalent to Israel’s. The precision of Israel’s weekend attacks against the S-300 systems and critical parts of Tehran’s missile-production facilities once again demonstrated Israel’s deep intelligence penetration of Iran, which was also highlighted by the assassination of Hamas’s political chief in Tehran in August and previous hits on its nuclear program.

No missile shield is impervious. Russia has hit at least one Patriot system in Ukraine. Israel has the world’s most advanced missile-defense system, yet Iran and its allies managed to penetrate it during strikes with missiles and drones this year.

Russian systems’ performance is also unlikely to have an immediate impact on Moscow’s military exports because it is using every piece of weaponry it can produce, leading to frustration among some customers. Russian arms exports have plunged since its large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Moscow’s foreign weapons sales fell 52% last year from 2022, according to SIPRI, based on its own calculations of export values. A low volume of outstanding orders “suggests that Russian arms exports are likely to remain well below the level reached in 2014-18, for at least the short term,” said a SIPRI report.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a public-relations disaster for its defense industry,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a think tank in Singapore. “Russia’s traditional customers have lost faith in the country’s defense industry and are looking for new suppliers,” he said.

Russia’s biggest customers have few near-term alternatives, so are likely pressing Moscow for details on recent events, analysts said.

“You’re going to be asking questions of your supplier” about levels of performance and measures to improve it, said Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute of Security Studies, a London think tank.

Potential beneficiaries of Russia’s troubles include South Korea, Israel, the U.S. and China, say analysts.

Among Russia’s most critical customers—and most exposed—is India, which accounted for more than one-third of Russia’s military exports between 2019 and last year, according to SIPRI. India has been among Moscow’s top clients since the Cold War, when relations with the Soviet Union were close.

India has received three S-400 systems out of five it ordered. The delivered units are positioned along borders with Pakistan and China, according to Indian security officials.

The Indian Air Force expects Russia to deliver the remaining two by the end of next year. Indian authorities have pressed Moscow on several occasions to accelerate delivery of the system, which officials say has been delayed by the war in Ukraine.

Indian officials said they didn’t see Israel’s strike on Iran as a warning for them.

“There is no comparison of S-400 with any other air-defense system in the world,” said a serving Indian security official. “What Iran has is an inferior version. There is no concern for us at all with regard to its advanced technology or performance,” the official said of the S-400.

Still, India has over recent years reduced its purchases of Russian arms and worked to develop its own systems, independently and in cooperation with other countries. Indian imports of Russian military gear in the period from 2019 to 2023 fell 34% from the preceding five-year period, according to SIPRI.

India relies on S-400s as long-range interceptors. For short- and medium-range systems it uses indigenously developed equipment and some developed in collaboration with Israel.

Indian authorities are also locally developing a long-range surface-to-air missile system that is expected to have a range similar to the S-400, according to security officials.

Israel’s strike on Iran is being noted in India, said another security official. “But as far as India is concerned, it’s not dependent solely on Russian technology. Its basket is diversified.”

        ---Feliz Solomon and Laurence Norman contributed to this article.