ImageSat International (ISI) captured photos showing the presence of the S-300 anti-aircraft battery in Masyaf, Syria in April and the empty site left behind on August 25 after the hardware was shipped to the port of Tartus. Separate images showed the battery components on a dock in Tartus between 12 and 17 August. By 20 August they had left and the ISI concluded that they had been transferred to a Russian vessel, the Sparta II, which left Tartus for the Russian port of Novorossiysk. Information from Refinitiv Eikon indicates that the Sparta II is currently in Novorossiysk, having arrived through Turkey’s Dardanelles Strait. The Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment. Russia has maintained a military presence in Syria since 2015, when it intervened in the civil war there alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. If confirmed, the transfer would signal a major move by Russia to bolster air defenses near the theater of war in Ukraine, where its forces have come under devastating attacks in recent weeks. In one such incident, eight Russian fighter jets were destroyed this month in a series of explosions at an air base in Crimea. Ukraine has refused to say whether and how it carried out the attacks. The ISI images showed that the radar component of the S-300 battery had been moved separately from the same Masyaf base to Khmeimim air base on the Syrian coast, north of Tartus. Company analysts said they estimated the radar’s size and weight made it unsuitable for shipping by sea and may require airlift by Ilyushin-76 aircraft from Khmeimim back to Russia. (Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by William Maclean)
