As Syria’s damn near civil war continues, Russia is selling the Bashar al Assad’s regime 36 Yakovlev Yak-130 attack jets under a freshly inked $550 million contract.
As Business Insider says, ‘nobody tells Russia who they can’t sell arms to.’ Not even when it’s a pariah regime that’s killed more than 5,000 of its own people in the last ten months.
Or as Russia’s foreign minister explains in this AP article:
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last week that Moscow doesn’t consider it necessary to offer an explanation or excuses over suspicions that a Russian ship had delivered munitions to Syria despite an EU arms embargo.
Russia was acting in full respect of international law and wouldn’t be guided by unilateral sanctions imposed by other nations, he said.
The Yak-130 is the sexy little training jet design that Italian defense giant Alenia markets around the world as the M-346, Alenia is even pitching the plane under the name, T-100, for the U.S. Air Force’s eventual T-X trainer contest. The version Russia is selling Syria can be loaded with plenty of weapons on its seven wing hardpoints.
Here are the details from Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, which notes that the sale could be nullified if Assad is overthrown, as was the case with Russian contracts to Gadhafi’s Libya. Just use Google translate when you open the article.
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Will Syria have the capability to use these in time for the current conflict? Unless Syria already knows how to operate them, don't then need to work out logistics, maintenance, training, etc. etc.?
I know nothing about these issues, so hopefully someone with a little expertise can talk about it. Maybe Russia figured they could cash in and Assad wouldn't survive to see them used.
Two words: Russian Mercenaries.
Russian advisors; consisting of trainer "test pilots" and "ground crew instructors"…
I thought the same thing upon reading this – The Yak-130, although probably a nice, competent fighter jet, does not compare to the military might of nations that potentially would like to "stabilize" Syria.
So from Russia's perspective, they are making a quick buck, without much international repercussion, for essentially what is the sale of a burning heap of metal.
…And if the weapons are used on more of Syria's own people, it gives even more leverage for the international community to intervene.
Your kidding right? Obama & Nato took the low hanging fruit in Libya & that took months. Like North Korea all they will get is another natsy letter in the perminate file.
All this is assuming payment is made immediately, which is frequently not the case in international dealings of this scale. Look back to the Russia/Ukraine fight over non-payment for gas.
The deal has been floating around for at least two years.
Private contractors will probably do the flying, while they are doing the "training" for Syrian fliers.
Alternatively, the Syrians have had pilots overseas training on these for some time now; and that this deal has just entered the limelight.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/29/Russia_def…
I guess the sale has been trickling along from 2008. Always possible they sent fliers over for training two years ago in anticipation?
The people of America would like to thank Russia for providing our Airforce with state of the art targets. The practice and training will provide out airmen the much needed R&R and entertainment they so truely deserve. I see dead turkeys.
Hahaha! Even with your enormous defense budget, America can not invade Iran, or Syria, without risk of massive losses (anyway the US are afraid to go at it solo, they always call on their lapdog Britain, and NATO). Remember Georgia, you guys were scared out of your minds to go against a weakened Russia. War has changed my dear ignorant trailer-park lord.
Yeah your right…Georgia was a glorious battle won for mighty Russia! Go Pootin!!
Georgia was never going to realistically win, and they likely went off the reservation by starting the war. However, the Russians guessed right that Bush was not going to go head to head with them over it.
Actually, in Georgia, the Russians had to stop the "advance" and called it "victory" or face total embarrassment. Despite all the weapons and large number of troops, Russia got a bloody nose and revealed its major weaknesses in both ground support by air and general logistics.
Georgia was defeated militarily (but survives as a political entity, which beats foreign occupation), gave Russia it's bloody nose in terms of dollar value of equipment destroyed, but lost territory and clout. It is up to the reader to determine what is a victory.
“face total embarrassment. ”
What kinda embarrassment theywere facing? Georgian left everything to russian without much fighting. Buk-M1′s and self-propelled artillery etc…
You just ignored the fact that Russian 58 army (which was involved in Georgia) is mostly second-rate force. The most trained and well-equipped combat units located in European part of Russia.
Why would America invade Iran or Syria? Heck we said we are going to impose sanctions on Iran's central bank in 5 months and their currency plummeted 14% this weekend alone, I think economics will do Iran in nicely. I'd say the Syrians themselves will do away with Assad and company.
Exactly…
You obviously haven't heard the news today. The U.S. sent an aircraft carrier along with a handful other ships through the Strait of Hormus, and guess what?… It was all so quiet as not a single Iranian boat could dare venture out to stop them.
That would be because our boats were out of their boat's range. IE, not within 500ft off the Iranian coast.
Why on EARTH would the United States ever invade Iran or Syria when they can simply disable both regimes from 30,000 feet? You are not making any sense here.
We heard the same spiel about Saddam. We still sent 150k troops in to depose him.
not like there's a choice, 500k barrel of oil per day is a chummy amount and given what saddam did in kuwait, waiting him out and having him disabling or burn the oil field is not an option when we'd prefer to add iraq's oil into the buffer.
iran have 2.2 million output roughly in export, saudi got spare 2million, so that iraq 500k sure as hell sounds good to have, makes sense that the US would be pressed to have iraq under control and saddam removed pronto…
but since now we have sufficient buffer:
saudi: 2 million
iraq: 500K
libya (a surprise entry): roughly 500K though seems to be rather erratic still.
so about 3million barrels per day of oil buffer… vs iran's 2.2 mil, we can now remove iran without real time constraint, they can remove their oil for all we care and it won't matter in a few months.
this time around, there's no real benefit to invade iran or syria… i mean seriously, who the hell invade another country without some real gain, yeah they train insurgents and are annoying as all hell, well they still need money for that, and if we're bankrupting them then that will eventually falter out as well.
We have no plan or goal to depose the government of Iran.
Your dreaming……
Half of your military is a bunch of halfwit high school droputs and cowards desperate for a way to pay for their "COLL-LEGGE" degrees. U.S. has never had an attack on it's own home soil. Never fought a war on it's own border.
U.S servicemen have NO GUTS.
Those dirty Russian bastards…
This platform is useless against Israel or NATO (certainly not a deterrent to any NATO action). It's for internal suppression purposes only. And yes, existing Syrian pilots could probably fly them right away, and Russian fighter pilots have flown Syrian jets in prior wars, why not now?_I wish Russia applied the same logic and standards to Israel and other weapons exported who want to sell weapons to Georgia and run into vociferous Russian objections.
Also:
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/1…
The UNSC veto is pretty much the "danger close". Russia can't do much else for Syria, except to export equipment and hope nothing incriminating is sitting in a file in the Syrian Mukhbarat.
Delivery Date?
Who will in power to receive them?
Cash in advance?
Who will BE in power…..
Islamists
Cute little trainer will they be used against the Islamist who knows. A Su-25 would be better. However the old and worn out L-29s and MiG-21UMs in service might need to be supplemented so Yes this plane can attack ground targets BUT also need to replace old Soviet era trainers that are too old to be safely flying.
In capitalist Russia…. oh wait…
… television watches YOU!
Russia ain't us. To kill "more than 5,000 of its own people" was an unfortunate necessity. Syria's money's still good & that's what matters.
Necessity? How about stepping down because you're corrupt and have overstayed your welcome?…..
See: Hungary, 1956
We stopped being welcome in Iraq around 2005, but we didn't exactly leave because they asked us to.
Dictators don't leave until their own army turns on them and digs them out of a spider hole or a sewer pipe.
Well, there ARE reports of syrian soldiers being killed at the same rate. and Assad's regime is still supported by the majority. So yeah, there is no moral bias in the story.
Russian thought: only 5,000??? pshhh
Yes US prefers to have 5000 servicemen killed and kill 100+K iraqis and afghanis ,run qitmo concentration camp and outsource GITMO 'labour' to more brutal regimes including Syria, install represive regimes that will be able to do the killing on their own .
Remember Bahrein ,yes 5 th fleet is based there ,when they couldnt handle the killing on their own, US ally the Saudis came and XE brought in pakistanis to do the killing.
Same in Egipt .
Bahrain had nothing like 5000 people killed- it was a shame- but facts actually do matter.
"Yes US prefers to have 5000 servicemen killed and kill 100+K iraqis and afghanis ,run qitmo concentration camp and outsource GITMO 'labour' to more brutal regimes including Syria, install represive regimes that will be able to do the killing on their own ."
Other than us losing 4800 of our guys – sounds like a good plan.
What is good about it killing thousands of people as a collateral to war on terror ,GITMO or new laws that permit US gov to detain you without charges indefinetly or wiretap and even assasinate US citizens .
Russians play the same game just with diferent players.
What has arisen after 2001 in US is a product of a nation scared and you don't even see it.Terrorists already won ,US went bust on a small local war ,taliban and co will be back in Kabul in no time as if nothing happened.Iraq is becoming a dictatorship and Iranians pull more strings than US ,China reaps the rewards
Uh, so what were we supposed to do? Not attack anyone because that would make us as bad as them? Give them full rights of citizenship so we can full humane?…..
Are they configured for Crowd Control?
All you need are cluster bombs, rockets and gunpods for crowd control. Is that an AAM on the stock photo?
The US is gonna look pretty silly playing the moral high ground card after the recent $80B+ arms deal with the gang of repressive tyrants and theocrats who run Saudi Arabia.
The bin Sauds may not have killed as many protesters as Assad, but that's only because their secret and religious police have them more thoroughly cowed.
No fan of Saudi Arabia- but I think Syria's secret police is nastier.
The weird thing about Saudi Arabia is that the rulers are Women's Studies at Brown liberal compared to the average Saudi schmo-
It does look like the T-100
I don't see the big deal. We've done many shady things in the past our selves the only difference is this one is in the lime light. Besides with the way things are going the Syrian government could collapse an Russia will be able to keep both the money and the planes.
Look at it this way: These planes are not intended to fight air threats, but are meant to strike ground targets. If Qaddafi's shipment had arrived before his downfall, there might not have been a downfall.
Britain has been supplying Hawk trainer/ground attack aircraft to suspect regimes for years without causing angst in Whitehall.
r8x2FC yjfliwryyhmm
There isn't good or bad country…Each government cares for their country or for them self.US,Russia,China,France,Germany and the rest countries in the world are doing what's good for them,they don't really care for the "democracy" in Iraq,Syria and etc…There are only eternal interests.
Considering the odds, I'd put it in the "win" column; things could have been a lot worse…..
They could, which is why Tims assertion of total embarassment on the part of the Russians is kind of ridiculous.
The first Chechen war pitted pitiful Russian conscripts against Soviet-trained veterans, back when Chechenya still had inventories of Soviet hardware. The second time around they were fighting a totally different set of bad guys, had their act together and had more local collaborators on hand; a winning formula.
First Chechenya is an example that's probably no longer worth lording over the United States, similar to how Somalia is no longer the best example of how the United States handles Operations Other Than nation-state War.
Sorry, I was referring to Georgia; that the Russians didn't do better is more a testament to the quality of the troops used than the Georgians ability to repel the invasion…..
Fair enough. If one compares the TO&E thrown into Chechenya and the one used on Georgia, it's clear one action was meant to be more…limited than the other. It's easy to say that the Americans were cowed, but if they were then Putin would not have played so conservatively.
Then again, Putin was around firsthand to see the reactions the Russian people had to occupations of Afghanistan and the botched first Chechen War, so he would probably aim for limited war and get political capital, which is worth more and less painful that owning the Georgian capital.
If you break it down in dollar value, they won the moment they nailed that bomber and miscellaneous fighters. In terms of ground equipment, the Georgians lost more than the Russians. However, what is the cost of tube artillery, little-better-than-Soviet-era ADA and the like?
In terms of manpower, Georgia had one NATO-grade (brigade? Battalion-plus?) operating in Iraq at the time, which didn't make it back in time. It had another unit in training and lost it to the Russians, in addition to legacy forces lost, which in all honesty aren't worth that much to begin with.
The 58th is also concentrated in Chechenya and presumably logistically supported from there.
New blurbs mention an MRD with independent tank battalions, Chechen units and the Russian airborne. Wikipedia's copy of the 58th Army's Order of Battle suggest it consists only of a motor rifle division, plus two motor rifle regiments and a guards rifle brigade, plus miscellaneous.
The 58th is probably the right size to have been sent in its entirety to Georgia, with the units not mentioned in the news possibly in Ossetia/Abkhazia and thus actions not known to Western media.
There's probably an academic plan to depose Iran sitting around somewhere (similar to the Rainbow Plans of WW2). However, the economy is not in shape to go back to wartime footing, though I guess making military hardware would "keep jobs in country".