Russia To Postpone Fighter Jets Supply To Syria Over Payment Issue

Russia will postpone the supply of 12 MiG-29M/M2 jets and the S-300 missile systems to Syria until 2016-2017 due to failed payments, according to the Kommersant newspaper.

Initially six of 12 MiGs were expected to be shipped to Syria by the end of this year.

Though the deal was sealed in 2007, shipping was delayed over technicalities and then put on hold because Syria has only paid Moscow 30 percent of what it owes for the jets, the report said.

The deal to supply S-300 missile defense systems to the country was also initially frozen over US and Israeli complaints and remains on hold due because Syria has so far failed to provide an advance payment, the report added.

“Supplies of S-300 are out of question until we see real money,” the newspaper cited an unnamed official at the Russian military-industrial cooperation complex as saying.

The S-300 were initially expected to be delivered by July 2014, but shipping would be delayed until 2015 or 2016 unless the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad pays up soon, according to the paper.