Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that Türkiye cannot legally resell it Russia has supplied S-400 air defense systems to third parties, citing end-user certificates as part of the weapons supply contract. “The weapons contract contained an end-user certificate paragraph,” he recalled. “In order to carry out other operations on products delivered under such certificates, which mention the country receiving these weapons as end-users, the consent of the country selling these weapons is required,” the minister said. The statement came as Reports say Turkey is close to reaching an agreement with the United States, which would retire its S-400s in exchange for a return to the F-35 fifth-generation fighter program. Turkey was officially dropped from the fighter jet program after receiving the first components of the S-400 system in July 2019, and has since struggled to modernize its fleet as the NATO member cannot realistically consider non-Western alternatives. . title=”F-35s built for the Turkish Air Force before withdrawing from the program”
Western sources have previously widely called on Turkey to transfer its S-400s to Ukraine, where Russian-made S-300 systems are widely use. Neighboring Greece has transferred its relatively modern S-300PMU-1 system to the country, reportedly as part of an agreement that allows it to begin purchasing F-35s. It is more likely, however, that the S-400s could be transferred to the United States or other NATO members to allow alliance members to study these systems. A possible loophole in the arms supply contract is that the systems would be transferred to U.S. control but remain on Turkish soil — possibly in an area where shared nuclear weapons are stored at the U.S.-controlled Incirlik Air Base. Russia relies heavily on the S-400 and other ground-based air defense systems to compensate for the small size of its fighter fleet relative to NATO and the lack of a large fifth-generation fighter fleet to counter the NATO F-35 fleet. Therefore, the system's compromise with the country's Western adversaries could have very negative consequences for Russian security. title=「Former Egyptian Air Force MiG-23MS in the United States」
Russia has historically seen its main weapons systems delivered to Western countries by third parties, and Turkey’s neighbor Egypt has< ;a href=" target="_blank">Causes the highest damageSoviet weapons and equipment in this area during the Cold War. In the 1970s, Egypt illegally transferred MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighter jets and 2K12 KuB air defense systems to the United States for research, which was initially denied until US Air Force General Robert Bond was killed while flying a MiG. Confirmed this. , won an overwhelming victory. However, the danger to Russia of the S-400 being compromised is much greater, because while the Soviet Union did not provide Egypt with the most powerful air defense systems or fighter jets, it was rapidly developing new generations of both assets, for example with the BuK-M1, MiG -23ML Compared to the MiG-29, the S-400 remains Russia's most important air defense system and is expected to become the backbone of its air defense network for more than a decade.