Officials from the RSK Mikoyan company have confirmed plans to sign a deal with the Syrian government to sell “more than 10” MiG-29M fighter jets to them. The exact number was not disclosed.
Russian officials have made much of providing Syria with primarily defensive weapons, which are meant to deter foreign invasions of Syria, and have sought to avoid weapons that could be used in the ongoing civil war.
The MiG-29 is somewhat different, is it does have some limited capabilities in attacking ground forces and could conceivably open up Russia to new criticism. Still, the warplanes are primarily designed for air-to-air combat, and with the rebels having no air force, it seems reasonable to assume they will be of only minor utility in the ongoing war.
MiG-29s and their variants have been the backbone of the Russian Air Force since the mid-1980s. Syria has a small number of the original model of the plane, but the new acquisitions would be a significant upgrade, and combined with the S-300 anti-aircraft batteries could make it difficult for foreign invaders to maintain air superiority in an attack on Syria.
NOT all current news is bad….This one ITEM IS great!
The USA-Israel and EU will use every tricks in their sleeves to invade Syria.., what Russians are trying to do is to prevent the West to even think about it.., thus far they are doing a very good job…, you will recognize a good work by a good friend when you see one.
The Russians are just talking, how about some action.
Interesting point Russians are getting pushed around and even though they have allot to lose if Assad goes down they have not decided to do more than provide hardware and technical support. I guess they do not need to with McCain sympathizing with al Qaeda and posting photos of himself of himself posing with kidnappers. McCain might actually get Americans to start asking some hard questions.
Good job Russia. Any way they could prevent my Nazi Zionist controlled regime from causing another war is great!
If push comes to shove what us must take out first are ground air defense systems radar and the misiles they direct then migs etc. hopefully migs are taken out on the ground. The real question is what those system look like. I suspect that this would be no trivial task or they would have already set up no fly zone. Given the density of Syria one can only assume that an operation like that would result in many civilian casualties. Clearly Syria will try not to activate these systems until the right moment. Bottom line air war will not be a free ride.