Is there really a deal to sell Russian S-300 systems to Syria?
Technically, it’s all hearsay, according to Eremenko. The single evidence was a 2011 annual report by S-300’s manufacturer, the Nizhny Novgorod Machine Building Plant, which mentioned a contract for such missiles for Syria. However, the report has since vanished from the plant’s website. The Vedomosti business daily that commented about that story said the contract was worth $105 million and that an unspecified number of S-300 systems were slated for delivery between 2012 and early 2013. Based on the quoted price, the alleged contract would cover the infrastructure required for one battery only. (One S-300 missile system is estimated to cost some $115 million, the cost of each missile is over one million US$.)