Russia has already delivered 50% of S-300 air defense systems to Iran as per the contract, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told reporters, following the Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan summit in Baku on Monday. Head of Russia’s Rostec corporation, Sergei Chemezov, said in July that Russia was planning to complete the delivery of the S-300 air defense systems to Iran by the end of 2016, Sputnik reported. The $800-million Moscow-Tehran contract to deliver the Russian S-300 systems to Iran was signed in 2007. It was suspended after the imposition of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran in mid-2010. In 2011, Iran sued Russia at the Geneva Arbitration Court after Moscow suspended the contract in 2010, citing a UN Security Council resolution that placed an arms embargo on Tehran. Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the S-300 delivery ban in April 2015, shortly after Iran and major powers reached a framework nuclear agreement to remove economic sanctions against Tehran in exchange for time-bound constraints on Iran’s nuclear program.
