Russian fighters go to Iran, but Israel is afraid of S-400 supplies
Iran will receive Russian Su-35 fighter jets, which will soon arrive in the country.
At the same time, military experts do not believe that this will radically strengthen Iran’s air forces, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Thus, a member of the commission on national security and foreign policy of the Iranian parliament, Shahriyar Heydari, said that Su-35 fighters ordered by Iran from Russia will arrive in the country at the end of March.
“We have given Russia orders such as defense systems, missiles and helicopters, and most of these weapons will soon arrive in the country,” Heydari said.
In turn, military analyst Yuri Lyamin noted that Iran had not been able to renew its aircraft fleet for many years due to international sanctions, while its potential opponents in the region were making massive purchases of the latest Western fighters, and therefore there was a strong imbalance in the aviation sector in the region not in favor of the Islamic Republic.
“Now against the Israeli F-35, F-15 and F-16, Saudi F-15 and Eurofighter Typhoon and so on, Iran can field mainly 45- or 50-year-old F-4, F-5 and F-14, and also a small number of MiG-29s purchased more than 30 years ago, and Chinese copies of MiG-21s of about the same age.
At the same time, the Iranian Air Force’s aircraft fleet is constantly shrinking, since, despite all the titanic efforts of repair enterprises, maintaining old American fighters in service, especially without support from manufacturers, is becoming more and more difficult every year,” Lyamin told Kommersant.
In his opinion, in these conditions, “the acquisition of the Su-35 in the currently expected quantities will allow Tehran to only slightly improve the situation, but the overall balance of forces in the region will not change radically.”
“Iran’s main means of deterrence and strike force will continue to be missiles and drones,” Lyamin believes.
At the same time, Israeli military expert David Gendelman noted that Israel is closely monitoring Russian-Iranian defense cooperation at the level of both the army and the expert community.
“The delivery of the Su-35 itself will not radically change the picture; the Iranian Air Force has been and will remain backward and does not represent a serious adversary for the Israeli Air Force. More worrying is the possible supply of S-400 air defense systems, which could create additional obstacles to an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, as well as the general rapprochement between Iran and Russia in the military sphere. This (in particular, thanks to Russian financial injections) may be reflected in the expansion of Iranian missile and drone production capabilities,” the expert said.
He believes that “this is precisely the main danger: Iran is helping Russia by supplying drones, not for good looks, but because it itself will receive something from Moscow in the military sphere, and any military strengthening of Iran is undesirable for Israel.”
True, Gendelman emphasized that at the moment, “Israel is refraining from public demarches against Russia and is waging a diplomatic struggle on other fronts, including through campaigning for increased sanctions pressure on Iran from European and other states.”
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