Contract to deliver Russian S-400 missiles to Turkey $2.5 billion.

The contract to deliver four battalions of Russian-made S-400 (NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler) surface-to-air defense missile (SAM) systems to Turkey is worth $2.5 billion, Head of Russia’s Rostec state hi-tech corporation Sergei Chemezov said in an interview with the Kommersant business daily.

Russian S-400 TEL Transporter Erector Launcher mobile unit (Picture source Russian MoD)

Turkey will be the first NATO country to purchase the advanced S-400 air defense missile system. Russia plans to start delivering the firs S-400 air defense systems in March 2020. Greece is another NATO country that use Russian-made air defense system, Greece has acquire S-300 PMU after after the Cyprus Missile Crisis and operated by the Air Force on Crete consisting of 2 S-300 PMU1 Batteries including 8 launchers and 39 missiles. Greece first fired an S-300 missile during the White Eagle 2013 military exercise, which was the first time it was used since it had been bought 14 years earlier.

On September 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara had signed an agreement with Moscow on the purchase of S-400 systems and had made an advance payment. 

This information was confirmed by Russian presidential aide for military and technical cooperation Vladimir Kozhin in late September. He said at that time that "the issue of transferring the S-400 production technology to Turkey is not on the agenda."

NATO is concerned about Turkey’s plans to purchase S-400 systems from Russia. This information was confirmed by US Permanent Representative to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison at a conference organized by the Washington Post newspaper.

According to her, the issue caused a lot of concern to NATO because they (S-400 systems) are not compatible with the air defense systems used by the alliance. She also added that Turkey was a key partner for the United States and NATO.

"We are also at the final stage of negotiations to deliver the systems to Saudi Arabia. On the whole, we have paid special attention to cooperation with the Middle East. Large-scale work has been done to implement a whole range of joint projects in the Persian Gulf states," Chemezov said.

The S-400 Triumph is a Russian-made long/medium-range surface-to-air defense missile system designed to destroy all current aerial threats as aircraft and aerospace-launched weapons. The S-400 Triumph can also destroy aerodynamic targets as cruise missiles, tactical and strategic warplanes at a range of 400 km. It has also the capacity to destroy ballistic missile flying at a speed of 4.8 km/s. The S-400’s radars have a 600-km target acquisition range and its 48N6E3 missiles engage aerial targets at an altitude from 10,000 to 27,000 m and ballistic missiles at an altitude from 2,000 to 25,000 m.