MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. Turkey has large potential of resistance to the US pressure on the issue of S-400 air defense systems, Director of Russia’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugayev said in a live broadcast of the Rossiya-24 TV Channel on Friday.

"They [the United States] have a big problem with Turkey today [on the issue of S-400 air defense systems purchased from Russia] and we know well about that. Our Turkish partners keep their resistance and understand that this is a matter of their national security," the Russian defense official said.

Turkey boasts good potential of resistance on the S-400 systems, Shugayev said. "I think that this is so. I believe that we will move further," he said.

S-400 deal

Russia announced in September 2017 that it had signed a $2.5 billion deal with Turkey on the delivery of S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems to Ankara. Under the contract, Ankara received a regiment set of S-400 air defense missile systems (two battalions). The deal also envisages partial transfer of production technology to the Turkish side.

Turkey is the first NATO member state to purchase such air defense missile systems from Russia.

Turkey’s decision to acquire the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile systems has caused a sharply negative reaction from the United States and NATO as a whole. The United States is not abandoning its attempts to make Turkey give up the Russian air defense systems.

As Turkey has not yielded to the pressure and has said that it will not give up the S-400 systems, Washington has excluded Ankara from the US program of developing the fifth-generation F-35 fighter-bomber.

The United States has also been threatening Turkey with unilateral sanctions over the purchase of S-400 air defense systems but is in no hurry to take these steps out of fear of further worsening relations with a major NATO ally while Ankara has warned it will not leave the imposition of these restrictions unanswered.

Russia’s S-400 ‘Triumf’ (NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler) is the latest long-and medium-range surface-to-air missile system that went into service in 2007. It is designed to destroy aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles, and can also be used against ground installations. The S-400 can engage targets at a distance of up to 400 km and at an altitude of up to 30 km under intensive enemy fire and jamming.