Russia, a key ally of Syrian government, joined the seven-year war in 2015 [File: Alexei Nikolsky/Reuters]

Russia has completed the delivery of an S-300 surface-to-air missile system to the Syrian military as part of new security measures following the downing of a Russian plane last month.

Russian Defense Minister Sergi Shoigu on Tuesday said at a meeting of the country’s security council that its army had “finished the deliveries of S-300 systems” including a total of four launch platforms.

Shoigu said it would take three months to train the Syrian military to operate the new air defence systems, while the integration of Russian and Syrian air defence assets into a single automated system will be completed by October 20.

“We now control a close zone of up to 50km (30 miles) and the far zone of 200km (124 miles) from where attacks on the Syrian territory were launched,” Shoigu said.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, joined the seven-year war in 2015.

The decision to deliver the modern defense system was reached following the shooting down of a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft, which was accidentally hit by a Syrian missile, killing 15 troops.

Moscow said Israel was culpable as the Il-20 had caught in the crossfire as four Israeli F-16 jets attacked targets in northwestern Syria.

The Israeli military said Syria’s indiscriminate air defence fire was the cause of the incident.

‘A serious escalation’

The United States has called the Russian move to arm Syrian military “a serious escalation”.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday said she could not confirm that Russia had delivered the system to Syria, but said it would be a “concern” if it had.

“I hope that they did not,” Nauert told reporters in Washington, DC, when asked about the Russian announcement. “That would be sort of a serious escalation.”

Russia-Israel tightrope

Israel has, in the past six years, carried out hundreds of attacks inside Syria, varying from firing rockets to air raids, which have increased in intensity and frequency since 2012, when Iranian paramilitary fighters joined the conflict.

Israel has carried out about 200 air raids in the last two years, according to its officials.

Since it joined the Syrian conflict, Russia has generally turned a blind eye to Israeli attacks inside the country.

Israel and Russia have also maintained a hotline to prevent their air forces from clashing in the skies over Syria.

The post Russia delivers S-300 missile system to Syria first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Moscow’s decision to have the US diplomatic staff in Russia reduced by 755 people has obviously caught Washington by surprise, Pavel Salin, the director of the Center for Political Studies at Moscow’s Financial University, says, explaining that the White House could not imagine that the Kremlin would adopt such a large-scale measure.

On July 28 the Russian Foreign Ministry suspended the use of all US Embassy warehouses as well as its compound in Moscow, and instructed the US to cut the size of its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people by September 1.

Speaking at a weekly press briefing on August 9, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert expressed regrets regarding the expulsion of American diplomats, which came as a response to a series of anti-Russia measures the US adopted under the previous and current administrations.

However, the Russian Embassy in the United States reminded the State Department that it was not Moscow who threw the first punch.

Back in December 2016, then-US President Barack Obama ordered to send 35 Russian diplomats out of the United States and froze access to two Russian diplomatic compounds over Moscow’s alleged interference in the US 2016 presidential run. The Kremlin has repeatedly rejected the allegations, denouncing the claims as absurd and referring to the lack of any evidence.

Earlier this month a new package of restrictions against Russia was signed into law by US President Donald Trump after it had passed almost unanimously by Congress.

The new law targets Russia’s defense, intelligence, mining, shipping and railway industries and restricts dealings with Russian banks and energy companies.

“This is a very short-sighted and even dangerous policy fraught with undermining stability for which Moscow and Washington bear a special responsibility,” the Ministry highlighted.

Commenting on the Kremlin’s move Salin emphasized that Russia merely couldn’t to leave Washington’s actions unanswered. However, according to the Russian scholar, it appears that Moscow caught the US leadership off guard.

“It seems to me that the US did not expect [Moscow to adopt] such large-scale measures,” Salin told Radio Sputnik.

Although the scholar believes that the relationship between the US and Russia would be “frozen” at the current level he didn’t exclude that new scandals, similar to the Siemens issue, would emerge in Europe.

“The US response will not be a mirror one,” Salin suggested, “Now they are likely to increase pressure on Russia’s counterparts in Europe. I would expect new scandals, like the Siemens case, but maybe in a slightly different perspective. In this regard, I think we should expect unpleasant surprises for Moscow.”

Last week the EU imposed additional sanctions on Moscow over a scandal surrounding the transfer of turbines supplied by German company Siemens to the Russian peninsula of Crimea in violation of previous Brussels’ sanctions.

For its part, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow considers the EU and the German government as those responsible for the “unfriendly and unjustified” decision of the sanctions’ extension and added that the Russian government reserves the right to respond.

Source: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201708101056355322-us-diplomats-russia/

The post Why Expulsion of US Diplomats From Russia Caught Washington Off Guard first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.