Russia dodged reports of S-300 system explosion in July

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Our sky is fortified. It is a very strong system and surprising for all flying objects. With these expressions which Russian media has used to talk about s-300 air missile defense system as a Russian supreme war model and a miracle that cannot be defeated.

But what the Russian media proposes and pictures on the screens is radically different from what is behind the scenes and what hidden cameras observe if we are to say so.

In the summer of 2016, specifically July 31st to August 7, Moscow hosted what can be called “military Olympics” which included competitions between 6 teams from 4 countries: Russia, China, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

These military competitions took place on the training and shooting field in Astrakhan Oblast south of Russia. In the Olympics-like competition, a main exercise was allocated in competing in air missile defense systems and specifically s-300, and s-300 PM Favorite. Those are the most advanced s-300 surface- to air missile systems.

During the competition called “sky keys”, and during exhibition of military muscles, Russia had a shaming and hurtful strike in presence of significant military figures from many countries when s-300 missile launch failed pathetically and fell down after its launch in 3 seconds above the missile launch platform and staff causing huge explosions, according to a recently published leaked footage.

Leaked photos taken at the scene showed how the missile destroyed the launch platform which cost 150 million dollars whereas one missile cost a million dollar.

Parallelism

Zaman al-Wasl conducted research and analysis to the leaked photos and footage and it reached irrefutable evidence which can lead to concluding that the incident happened in Oblast field south of Russia during a competition called “sky keys” and in fact, it struck the s-300 missile defense system participating in the competition.

Zaman al-Wasl checked photos from Russian Ministry of Defense taken from the competition “sky keys” where Zaman al-Wasl compared these photos with the leaked ones and the result was parallelism.

The parallelism included the shape of the vehicle and written numbers as well as the land furnished under the system with the terrain of the place.

Not only that, Zaman al-Wasl returned to a group of footages which show s-300 launch operations from Oblast field to verify that the incident happened in that field and struck the s-300 defense system and not another.

Despite that the production of s-300 system goes back to 1978 in the Soviet era, Russia Putin leadership insisted during the recent years on marketing the system as if it is a new conquest and something supernatural that cannot be imitated.

Moscow benefited from the different tensions in the world in its marketing propaganda especially in Iran and Syria.

In Iran, Russia assumed the role of a playful woman in dealing with Iran and postponed delivering the system for few years under pretext Russia respects international sanctions which led Tehran to file a complaint on its alley to demand implementing the contracts.

During these years, Moscow played brilliantly on amending the clauses and bargain prices until Tehran announced on December 5 2016 the delivery of s-300 defense system.

Also, Russia played a similar role in Syria but in different steps to announce in October deploying s-300 in the Syrian coast to protect its bases there as Russia said and not in defense of Syria or to protect the regime as regime loyalists said. 

Regime loyalists who were disappointed later in the developments where different countries’ warplanes were violating the national sovereignty without even a Russian warning of the use of s-300 or s-400. This is not to mention of their being used in fact.

When Moscow was boasting that s-300 systems are protecting its sky and the skies of Belarus, Iran and Russia, Moscow was suffering to conceal the scandal of its military production which was humiliated in the military Olympics in Astrakhan.

What is more ironic that as soon as the competition was over, Moscow announced that its participating teams proved they are well trained and cooperative and were able to hit all the targets. Moscow went further to announce the Russian military personnel winners in the first place in s-300 missile defense system and s-300 P S and s-300 PM Favorite. Nobody knew how Moscow reached those results. 

The only question hanging in there was, “so who fails in launching a huge missile and destroyed a very expensive defense system got the first rank, so what about those who got the rest of the ranks!”

Russians especially the ones neighboring Oshlok field are used to seeing incidents of failure of weaponry of their countries and hearing news reporting disasters there. 

On June 20, Russian authorities admitted violent expositions in Osholk where fire was ignited in missile engines used to place spaceships in low orbits around the earth. The fire extended to ammunition warehouse causing a great explosion and hundreds of people were evacuated from the area. 

Also, in one of the missile experimentation in Osholk, a missile was launched randomly killing around 8 Russian military personnel.