Turkey completes purchase of Russia's S-400 missile system - says it's superior to US Patriot which "didn't work"

Muraselon
Sun, 02 Dec 2018 22:13 UTC

According to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, the S-400 system purchased from Russia is vastly superior to the Patriot air defense system built by the US and this is why Turkey has chosen the former.

The Turkish FM explained that for about a decade Turkey attempted to buy air defense systems, including the MIM-104 Patriot, from the US, however the so-called high-end interceptor missile system simply "didn't work" when put through tests.

Given that the Patriot failed to meet the Turkish military's air defense requirements, Turkey then pursued options in other countries.

Cavusoglu claims that by the time Turkey got around to organizing a contract with Russia for the purchase of S-400 the military's need for a modern highly-effective air defense system was "urgent".

"[The] S-400 deal is done", Cavusoglu reaffirmed. "Russia gave us the best deal and [now it] is the done deal and in the future let's see, who is going to make the best proposal".

According to sources, the Turkish military will acquire four battalion-sized units of S-400s (technically as many as 32 individual launchers, each with four ready-to-fire missiles) from Russia, worth 2.5 billion dollars.

Comment: Turkey's agreement with Russia has been in the works for almost a year:

"Turkey will purchase two systems and four batteries from Russia - an agreement has been reached," Canikli said, as cited by the Yeni Safak newspaper.

The remaining financial issues have been resolved between the sides, the minister said Wednesday. "Do we use credit? Or finance it ourselves? In the end we settled on covering one part with credit after negotiations," said Canikli said.

The deal between Moscow and Ankara will be worth $2.5 billion, the head of the Russian state-run Rostec Corporation, Sergey Chemezov, told Kommersant daily. Turkey will pay 45 percent of the cost in advance, with the remaining 55 percent to be covered by Russian loans, he said. Delivery of the S-400 Triumf systems to Turkey is expected to start in late 2019 or early 2020, Chemezov said.

Turkey will become the first NATO member state to use Russian air defense systems, and the purchase has already attracted a backlash within the US-led military bloc. The Pentagon earlier said that purchasing hardware that doesn't meet the NATO specifications "generally isn't a good idea."

Reader Comments

Brakar · 2018-12-04T23:16:41Z

who would belive something like this could happen 10 months ago, when turkey downed a russian jet over idlib? (cool-headed guys those russians/very different from from cow-boys)

sottreader · 2018-12-05T07:38:29Z

The obvious question about this entire deal is why is Russia doing this, and especially with a NATO member. Receiving 2.5 billion dollars for giving these systems to Turkey is a mere pittance considering the potential negative impacts to Russia.

In spite of some apparent friction in US-Turkey relations, it is a certainty that one way or another, one of these systems will be made available to US experts to do with as they please: monitor, inspect, test, disassemble, reverse-engineer, etc, etc., etc. The US will then be able to discern the weaknesses of the system and develop countermeasures.

In addition, if the system actually is more capable than what the US has (and there's probably little doubt that it is), this will assist the US to field their own newer systems more advanced than they currently have and using Russian R&D.