MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia should sell its S-300 air defense systems to Iran, North Korea and Syria, simultaneously training these countries' servicemen to use the weapon, Alexander Sherin, first deputy chairman of the Russian parliament's lower house defense committee, told Sputnik on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff Col. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy said that Russia might consider sale of the S-300 systems to Damascus following US-led strikes against Syria.
"It is necessary to consider not only deliveries of missile defense systems, but also deliveries accompanied by those people who can train the personnel of these countries, so that Syria, Iran and North Korea could deploy these systems, if they wanted," Sherin said.
The S-300 is a Russian long range surface-to-air missile system, developed to defend against aircraft and cruise missiles.
"These systems were supposed to be supplied there a long time ago… If we do not want our soldiers and officers to die, if we do not want, say, some large-scale wars with the loss of civilians, everything is very simple: the S-300 system," he added.
Early on Saturday, US President Donald Trump announced the military action in Syria in response to the alleged chemical weapons attack in the city of Duma in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. As a result, Washington, and its allies – France and the United Kingdom – fired missiles on the Syrian facilities, which they claimed were linked with chemical weapons production.
According to the Syrian authorities, the Western coalition fired over 100 missiles on the Syrian targets, however part of the missiles had been intercepted by the Syrian air defense. No people have been killed, but at least three sustained injuries as a result of the strikes.
The Russian Defense Ministry noted that the Syrian Armed Forces had used Soviet air defense systems S-125, S-200, Buk, and Kvadrat to repel the missile attacks. All of them were produced in the Soviet Union more than 30 years ago, it added.
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