Is Russia Supplying Attack Aircraft to Syria?
Filed under: Europe ~ Middle East ~ Russia
The Jerusulem Post reports:
Russia has started delivery of top-of-the-line fighter jets to Syria under a new deal estimated to be worth US$1 billion, a newspaper said Tuesday -- but the report was quickly denied by the state arms trader. The business daily Kommersant said that Russia had begun delivering five MiG-31E jets under a deal apparently negotiated during Syrian President Bashar Assad's trip to Moscow last autumn. Commenting on the report, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement that "all of Russia's deals in the sphere of military-technical cooperation comply with international law and Russia's obligations under various treaties and United Nations resolutions." He would not elaborate. But Sergei Chemezov, head of state arms-trading monopoly Rosoboronexport, flatly denied the Kommersant report. "Russia has no plans to deliver fighter jets to Syria and Iran," Chemezov said at a Paris air show, according to the Interfax news agency. Russia has shrugged off US and Israeli criticism of its previous weapons deals with Syria and Iran, saying the deals complied with international law.
The photo above, taken from the Kommersant story linked to in the quote, is captioned: "In Syria, even children love Russian military hardware, and they have ever since the Soviet MiG-17 (in the photo) took part in the 1973 war against Israel."
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