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Russia’s S-400 Missile System Is The Hottest Thing Since Sliced Bread

By Fuad Mukhtarli February 15, 2018

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The S-400 Triumf air defense missile systems / Sergey Molgavko / TASS

The S-400 is proving to be lucrative for Russia’s defense manufacturing sector, and popular with its global clients. Turkey, for example, has yet to receive the batch of Russian-made S-400 purchased last year for $2.5 billion, but that isn’t stopping officials in Ankara from thinking about buying more.

According to a report published by Russia’s TASS news agency on Tuesday, an unnamed source was quoted as saying that Ankara plans to sign a deal for a second order after the first batch is received in 2020.

"After the delivery of the first batch concludes in May or June 2020, the parties plan to sign a new contract on the delivery of the second batch of the S-400 systems in 2021,” TASS wrote, quoting “a military diplomatic source.”

“The list of supplies will be similar to the one included in the first contract,” the source was quoted as saying, however certain components will be made locally, which the source said, "are not of crucial importance.”

Turkey was the first NATO member state to purchase such a system from Russia.

In September, Vladimir Kozhin, the Russian presidential aide on military-technical cooperation, told TASS that there is a "real queue" (line) for S-400 systems. And if arms deals inked with Moscow’s partners across the globe are any indication, Kozhin is right.

Last month China received a shipment of the six S-400 units it purchased for $3 billion in 2014. In October of last year, Moscow inked a $3 billion arms deal with Riyadh that included the sale of the S-400 to Saudi Arabia. Russian authorities have also been in discussions with Bahrain and Egypt for purchases of the system that is known as the SA-21 Growler by NATO, and a contract is already in place with India.

Belarus, Vietnam, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Syria and Sudan all have been reported to also be pursuing Moscow for an arms deal that would at least include the S-400, an anti-aircraft system considered on par, or even surpasses, anything the U.S. produces.

The system was been initially developed in the 1990s, by Russia's Almaz Central Design Bureau, but did not become operational until the Russian armed forces began using it in 2007. Since then, units have been deployed around Moscow, in Russia’s Far East to stave off any threat from North Korea, as well as on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The S-400 was designed to destroy aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles, and ground targets objectives. Four missile types are used in the system’s envelope, namely the Russian 40N6 very-long-range 400 km (249 mi); the 48N6 long-range 250 km (155 mi); the 9M96E2 medium-range 120 km (75 mi) and the 9M96E short-range 40 km (25 mi). Each missile battery can simultaneously hit 80 different targets with two missiles each.