Turkey to start getting Russia's advanced missile defense system in 2019
Russia will start delivering its advanced S-400 missile defense system to Turkey in 2019, the Russian Izvestia newspaper cited the head of Rosoboronexport, the country’s state arms exporter Dmitry Shugayev as saying on Saturday.
Earlier a Turkish defense official said that the delivery of the S-400 batteries had been brought forward from the first quarter of 2020 to July 2019.
To remind, Turkey and Russia negotiated the purchase throughout 2017, finalizing a deal worth some $2.5 billion at the end of the year. Turkey's purchase of the Russian-made air-defense system has ratcheted up tensions between Ankara and the rest of the NATO alliance.
To note, the missile system is not interoperable with NATO weapons systems.
The US and other member states to NATO had repeatedly expressed concern about Turkey's deployment of the S-400 that could risk the security of the alliance.