America's Worst Nightmare in Syria: Has Russia Deployed the Lethal S-300?

Dave Majumdar

Security, Middle East

If true, how will American respond? 

Moscow may have deployed the powerful S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Syria according to some media reports. However, the reports are unconfirmed—Russian military officials have not specified what kind of missiles they are deploying—or if indeed they are adding to their forces in the region.

“We have studied all the possible threats. We sent there not only fighter jets, attack aircraft, bomber aircraft, helicopters but also missile systems. As various force majeure circumstances may occur,” said Russian air force chief Col. Gen. Viktor Bondarev in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper published on Thursday according to TASS. It’s not clear if Bondarev is referring to additional weapons or the handful of Pantsir-S1 point defense missiles Russia has already deployed to Syria.

If the Russian military has deployed a version of the Almaz-Antey S-300 series, it would massively complicate air operations for U.S. and allied forces. Almaz-Antey currently builds two versions of the weapon system according to its product catalogue—the S-300PMU2 and the S-300VM, also referred to as the Antey-2500. Both have a range of more than 120 miles and can hit targets as high as 100,000ft. The weapons can engage half-a-dozen or more target simultaneously.

As one senior U.S. Marine Corps aviator told me earlier in the year, the S-300 series is a deadly threat to everything except the most advanced stealth fighters and bombers. “A complete game changer for all fourth-gen aircraft [like the F-15, F-16 and F/A-18]. That thing is a beast and you don’t want to get near it,” he said.

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