MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. The first batch of S-300 air defense systems - about one battalion - has already been supplied to Iran, presidential aide for military-technical cooperation Vladimir Kozhin has said, adding that the other launchers due under the effective contract would be delivered by the end of the year.
"The first batch - about one battalion - has been shipped. We will comply with our liabilities by the end of the year," Kozhin said, when asked about the S-300 contract with Iran.
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On Wednesday, May 18, the chief of the federal service for military-technical cooperation Alexander Fomin told the media that some S-300 systems had been delivered to Iran already. He avoided disclosing the exact number of S-300 already provided or the date when the supplies would be over.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the defense-industrial complex, declared the beginning of S-300 supplies to Iran on April 11. He said that as soon as it received the first batch of S-300, Iran should revoke its lawsuit from Russia, filed when Moscow had refused to provide the systems several years ago.
Iran in 2007 declared that it had purchased Russia’s S-300 air defense launchers, but Dmitry Medvedev, who then held the post of Russia’s president, prohibited the supplies of these weapons to Tehran. Iran sued Russia nearly $4 billion. In the spring of 2015 President Vladimir Putin lifted the freeze.