Russland

[Cluster]

Russia has left the ‘western orbit’

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MOSCOW: Russia could be on the verge of clinching an arms deal with Syria or Iran that would send the US and Israel into pop-eyed rage. A few days ago a Russian arms manufacturer let slip at an arms fair in Kuala Lumpur that his state-run weapons design bureau was close to sealing a foreign sale of Iskander-E missiles. The destination of the hardware was secret, he said, but the most obvious market is clear: the Middle East.
Last year, Israel was furious when it emerged that Moscow was planning to sell the Iskander to Damascus. The Iskander is like the Scuds that Iraq used during the Persian Gulf war but many times more accurate and better equipped to avoid defensive weapons such as the Patriot missile. Syria — part of George Bush’s “axis of evil” - would love to be able to trundle some of these short-range ballistic missiles down to its southern border to point at Israel in the event of a conflict.
No doubt the Iranian regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also itching to get its hands on some of these weapons — whose sale is not restricted by any treaty. Earlier this month Iran tested an underwater missile that looked suspiciously like a Russian Shkval. (...)