Iran Tests Successfully Russian S-300 Air-Defense Missile System: Sources

"Iran's own Bavar-373, an alternative to S-300, would be tested very soon" - Air Defense Commander General Farzad Esmaili

IndraStra Global Editorial Team

Image Attribute: In front of the portraits of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, and late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, left, a long-range, S-300 missile system is displayed by Iran's army during a military parade marking the 36th anniversary of Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran, in front of the shrine of late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, just outside Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016. | AP PHOTO/ EBRAHIM NOROOZI

On March 4, 2017, Iran’s Air Defense conducted a successful test of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system it has purchased from Russia in an exercise involving local experts, as reported by the Tasnim News Agency.

"In the drill, dubbed Damavand and attended by a number of high-ranking military commanders and officials, Iran’s Air Defense tested the Russian-made missile system to assess its performance against a broad range of aerial targets," the news agency wrote.

Video Attribute:  The first video released of Iran's S-300 test strikes 

Source: Defence.ru Youtube Channel

Russia and Iran inked the contract to deliver five Russian S-300 systems in 2007, but it was suspended due to the adoption of UN Security Council sanctions passed as a resolution 1929 on Iran in mid-2010, due to which Tehran was contemplating upon an option to sue Moscow in International Court of Arbitration, and started demanding not only delivery of the weapons for which it had already made partial payment but also asked Moscow to pay the penalty which was supposed to be almost $4 billion for breach of contract.

However, in summer 2015, President of Russia Vladimir Putin had signed a decree lifting the ban on the export of anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran following an interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, and in November of that year, the contract came into force. Later, the Russian president explained the lifting of the ban - "a great display of flexibility and a clear desire of the Iranian partners to achieve a compromise on its nuclear program."

In October 2016, the federal service for military-technical cooperation reported Russia had completed supplies of the systems to Iran. Head of the state-run Rostec Corporation Sergey Chemezov said the contract’s value was about $1 billion.

In December 2016, Iran's ambassador in Moscow Mehdi Sanayee said that Russia had finished executing the contract on supplying Iran with divisions of S-300 missile systems to Iran.

At the same time, Iran is also developing "Bavar-373", an alternative to Russian S300, which it showed for the first time in  August 2016 and it is expected to begin the mass production of the same in March 2017 after the completion of on-going technical tests. However, according to a Russian expert quoted at RIA Novosti - "the Iranian system is far from matching the capabilities of Russia's S-300 system."

Recently, the U.S. imposed fresh sanctions on Iran after it test-fired a ballistic missile. Iran also features on the list seven countries whose citizens have been barred from entering the United States under the travel ban imposed by the Trump administration in an executive order signed by the U.S. president on January 27.

With reporting by Tasnim News Agency, TASS, Sputnik, Reuters, and APA