A proposal that was not well received by the international community trying to maintain constant pressure on Iran to reach a global agreement on the country's nuclear activities.
The proposal was communicated by Sergei Chemezov, head of the company that manages the Russian defense industry Rostec.
We offered - said Chemezov to the Sputnik news agency - the advanced version of the S-300 missile system known as Antey-2500 (photo), but no agreement was signed yet. Chemezov added that the Antey-2500 is an advanced version of the S-300 model, which Russia no longer has online.
The same surface-to-air missiles would be sold to Venezuela in the 2013.
The 9M82M missile known as "Antey-2500", (code-named NATO SA-23 Gladiator Giant) is specifically designed for tactical defense against medium-range ballistic missiles at a maximum distance of 200 km. The system is highly automated thanks to the high-speed digital computing computers installed on board.
The SA-23 is considered immune to most Western ECM countermeasures with a operational tangency of thirty thousand meters.
The Antey, once put on line, does not require maintenance for at least ten years, while its warheads are considered able to defeat even the most modern western ballistic missiles. It is driven by an inertial system with half-way radio updating, while in the terminal phase it relies on a semi-active radar.
Russia and Iran signed an important military cooperation agreement, during the last visit of Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu, in Tehran, which took place last January (v. article).
Franco Iacch
(photo: MoD Fed. Russa)
