Putin Approves Sale of S-400 to China

Vladimir Putin has approved in principle the sale of Russia’s most advanced air and missile defense system to China, Russian media outlets have reported.

According to a report on the Russian business channel RBK TV, which was reproduced by BBC Monitoring, Russian President Putin has approved the sale of between two and four S-400 air and missile defense systems to China. Such a deal has long been under negotiation, and if approved would make China the first foreign customer of the advanced defense system. Already, China deploys a number of the Soviet-era S-300 defense system.

Despite the ongoing talks, some had felt that Russia would ultimately refuse to sell China the S-400 surface-to-air missile system for a number of reasons. First, there were reports that Russia planned to withhold all foreign sales of the S-400 until Moscow’s own military needs had been satisfied, sometime later this decade. More importantly, there were widespread concerns in Russian military circles that China would purchase a few of the systems with the intent of stealing the technology and reverse engineering a domestic version. This has been a common problem with military systems Russia has sold to China in the past.



http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/putin-approves-sale-of-s-400-to-china/