China signs $3 billion S-400 Triumf contract with Russia - newspaper
MOSCOW. Nov 26 (Interfax-AVN) -The first-ever contract for exports of the S-400 Triumf air defense missile system has been signed.
"A contract between Rosoboronexport and the Chinese Defense Ministry was signed at the beginning of this fall for the delivery of at least six battalions of S-400 air defense missile systems worth of more than $3 billion," Vedomosti reported on Wednesday.
Negotiations on the delivery of S-400 systems to China had been in progress for several years and the Russian Defense Ministry said in 2011 that exports might begin no earlier than 2016 because the Russian Armed Forces would have to be provided for first, the newspaper said.
"Saudi Arabia's interest in the long-range air defense system was reported again and again but those negotiations came to a halt. The Belarusian Defense Ministry declared its wish to buy the system, and system marketing was done in Libya. The S-400 system was part of the Turkish Armed Forces' tender for air defense systems but it was defeated by the Chinese HQ-2, "a derivative" of Russia's S-300PMU-2. Turkey cancelled the results of that tender in fall 2013 under the pressure from its North Atlantic Alliance partners," the report said.
The S-400 Triumf air defense missile system is a product of the Almaz-Antei Concern and is based on the S-300 long-range air defense system, one of whose major buyers was the People's Liberation Army of China. Rosoboronexport fulfilled the most recent contract for 15 battalions of the S-300PMU-2 air defense missile system in 2010.
