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Two S-400 battalions and a Syrian border row
Summary
A look back at 17 January 2018, when Russian air defence in Crimea and a dispute over a US-backed force in Syria drew attention.
What was Moscow signalling in the days before 17 January 2018? Reports from 13 and 15 January pointed to two separate theatres, Crimea and Syria, where Russia was prominent in security news.
Crimea: a second S-400 battalion
On 13 January 2018, Russia deployed a second S-400 anti-air missile battalion in Crimea. The peninsula had been occupied and annexed by Russia in February and March 2014, after a referendum that was illegitimate, amid the uncertainty that followed Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity. The invasion marked the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The deployment added to Russian air defence on territory that Ukraine regards as its own.
Syria: a force not yet born
On 15 January 2018, Turkey threatened to "strangle" the United States-backed Syrian Border Security Force "before it's even born". Syria vowed to crush the force and to expel American military personnel from the country. Russia called the plans "a plot to dismember Syria".
Reading the two together
The two items were separate events, and the reports link them to each other in no way. Still, they show the situation on the eve of 17 January 2018: Russia reinforcing its military posture on a peninsula it had annexed, and Russia, Turkey and Syria all voicing hostility to a US-backed project in Syria. In both cases the language and the hardware pointed to a hardening of positions rather than to any easing.
