Regiment armed with S-400 missile system to provide support for Crimea
MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax) - An air defense missile regiment equipped with an S-400 surface-to-air missile system has entered combat duty in Crimea, the press service of Russia's Southern Military District told Interfax on Friday.
"A truly large-scale system is entering combat duty and is overlapping the already existing air defense system in the south of our country by hundreds of kilometers," Air Force and Air Defense 4th army commander Lt. Gen. Viktor Sevostyanov was quoted as saying by the press service.
The S-400 Triumf system was provided to the Sevastopol-Feodosiya guard air defense missile regiment in 2016, the press service said.
The personnel of the regimen were successfully retrained for S-400 systems, practice launches of the missiles were carried out last August as part of the Caucasus 2016 exercise, according to the Southern Military District.
The rite of entry into service for the S-400 command and control center and division will take place in Crimea on January 14, the District's spokesperson said.
The Russian military said earlier that potent air defense systems had been redeployed to Crimea. In particular, on November 19, an event in Kerch, organized by the Russian Defense Ministry to recruit professional soldiers, featured a demonstration of an S-400 air defense missile system and a Pantsir-S combined surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft artillery weapon complex.
Last summer Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, a former commander of the Black Sea Fleet, told Interfax-AVN that a deployment of the S-400 surface-to-air missile system will significantly boost Russia's defensive capabilities in the south.
"This is a reinforcement of the firepower. This will strengthen our defensive capabilities not only in Crimea but also in the south, considering the system's proximity from the U.S. missile defense system," Komoyedov said at the time.
The S-400 Triumf air defense system developed and manufactured by Almaz-Antey is designed to provide highly efficient protection from strategic and tactical aircraft, ballistic missiles, hypersonic targets and other means of aerial attack amid radio-electronic and other types of countermeasures.
The system can destroy aerodynamic targets at a range of up to 400 kilometers and engage ballistic targets flying at a speed of up to 4.8 kilometers per second at altitudes varying from several meters to several dozen kilometers at a range of 60 kilometers.
The S-400 system is used to protect Russia's Hmeimim military base in Syria.
Four S-400 Triumf systems will enter service in the Russian Aerospace Forces this year, the Defense Ministry told Interfax on Wednesday.
"In all, four surface-to-air missile regiments were re-armed with S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile systems in 2016. Four more S400s will enter service in the Aerospace Forces in 2017," the ministry said.