Ankara has no doubts that it will be able to buy a second regiment of S-400 air defence systems from Russia, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
"We have no doubts about the purchase of a second batch of S-400s from Russia. Turkey and Russia are taking a lot of steps, whether it be with S-400s or other areas in the defence industry. During the effort to put out the fires [in southern Turkey] we used Russian planes. In my last telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, we discussed this topic. When I travel to Russia, we will discuss all of this again", Erdogan said, speaking to journalists on board his plane while en route back from his visit to Bosnia on Sunday.
Turkey's purchase of Russian-made air defence systems irked Ankara's US and NATO allies, sparking a major diplomatic crisis and prompting Washington to cancel the sale of Lockheed Martin's F-35 fifth-gen fighter jets to the country. The S-400s also led Washington to slap sanctions on Turkey's defence sector. NATO has warned that the Russian-made air defence systems are incompatible with the alliance's standards, and suggested that the Russian side would somehow be able to collect sensitive intelligence on the alliance's air defence network through the Turkish S-400 contract. Russian and Turkish officials have dismissed these claims.
Officials in Ankara have resisted US and NATO pressure, stressing repeatedly that they would not give up their existing S-400s and indicating that they would be interested in purchasing more. Some analysts have speculated that Turkey's interest in S-400s stems in part from the fact that they appear to lack a kill switch which would allow Washington or its allies to deactivate Turkish air defences in an instant in the event of conflict.
This week, Russia's state arms exporter announced that a contract on the delivery of additional S-400s for Turkey is expected to be signed before the end of 2021.
The S-400 is currently the most advanced mobile air defence system in Russia's arsenal, and is capable of detecting, tracking, and shooting down enemy aircraft, missiles, and drones at ranges between 40 and 400 km, depending on missile configuration. The system was developed by Russia's Almaz Antey.
In addition to Turkey, Belarus and China have received several S-400s, and in 2018 Russia and India penned a $5.4 billion contract for the air defence weapons. S-400 deliveries to India are expected to begin in November, with Delhi planning to begin deploying the system by April 2022. The US has repeatedly threatened to sanction Delhi over its S-400 purchase, but the South Asian nation has so far ignored these warnings. Russia had 34 regiments of S-400s consisting of 560 launchers as of late 2020, with the systems making up a substantial portion of the mobile component of the country's layered air defence network.