Russia Training Iranian Troops To Operate S-300 Air Defence Missile System

Iranian troops are being trained in Russia on how to operate the S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system in preparation to Tehran taking delivery of it by this year end.

Iran’s defence minister, Hossein Dehghan told local journalists yesterday that the “executive stage” of the agreement is over and that his country would receive a "major part" of the shipment in less than two months, Press-TV reported.

“We have concluded a contract with the Russian side and it has also been signed,” Dehqan said. His statement confirming a similar claim by Rostec Chief  Sergei Chemezov made to the Russian media at the Dubai Air Show.

How, a source close to Iranian defence establishment told defenseworld.net at the Dubai Air show that no new agreement has been signed. The deal is being implemented based on the 2007 agreement which Russia did not honor and over which Tehran had taken Rosoboronexport, the Russian arms exporting agency, to court.

He said Tehran may receive about half of the total number of batteries ordered within the next 2-3 months and the rest  spread over next year.

The S-300 deal implementation appears to have gathered pace after President Putin signed a decree in April 2015 clearing the way for delivery of the missile system to Iran.

Another source said Iran and Moscow had intensified their discussion about the S-300 missile system delivery even before the Iran nuclear talks in Geneva which led to an agreement between Tehran, the West and Russia. “A lot of groundwork has happened since the end of 2014 on the deal’s implementation; such a sophisticated system cannot be delivered without preparing the command and control system required to operate the missiles besides training Iranian crew.”