Home › Security › What Russia's second S-400 battalion meant for Crimea
What Russia's second S-400 battalion meant for Crimea
Summary
A look back at the security reports of mid-January 2018, from the Crimean peninsula to northern Syria.
What was Russia adding to its military posture in Crimea in the days before 18 January 2018? As reported on 13 January 2018, Moscow had deployed a second S-400 anti-air missile battalion on the peninsula.
The deployment came nearly four years after Russia invaded and occupied Crimea in February and March 2014 and then annexed it following a referendum described as illegitimate. The takeover came amid the uncertainty that followed Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, and it marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Tension over Syria
The same week, a separate dispute drew in Russia. On 15 January 2018, Turkey threatened to "strangle" the United States-backed Syrian Border Security Force before it was even born. Syria, for its part, vowed to crush the force and to expel American military personnel from the country.
Russia called the plans a plot to dismember Syria.
The picture on 18 January 2018
Taken together, the reports showed Russia reinforcing its air-defence capability in occupied Crimea while voicing sharp objections to a US-backed force in Syria, with Turkey and Damascus both openly hostile to that force. The reports gave no further detail on the Crimean deployment.
