Russia remains unwilling to pay Iran any penalty fee for breaking the contract it had with Iran to provide the S-300, which can shoot down planes and cruise missiles. The Islamic Republic reportedly wanted the system to guard its nuclear sites.
Russia says it owes Iran no penalty payment because it was forced to cancel the contract by an outside action beyond its control—namely, the UN sanctions approved last summer. But that was not beyond Russia’s control since Russia voted for the sanctions and could have vetoed them.
More relevant, US officials have said the UN sanctions do not ban the S-300 sale to Iran. They said the UN language barring major weapons sales to Iran was written very carefully at Russia’s insistence using language that did not cover the S-300. But for some reason not explained, Russia later decided it did not want to sell the S-300 to Iran.
Iran last October demanded that Russia make a penalty payment for canceling the sale.
Russia acknowledged last October that Iran made a down payment of $166.8 million for the S-300. Officials said then that the down payment would be refunded, but not one additional ruble would be paid to Iran for interest or a cancellation penalty.
Last week, however, Mikhail Dmitriyev, the director of Military-Technical Cooperation, told Moocow’s Kommersant daily that Russia might not refund the cash. He said Iran might instead get military “supplies not banned under the UN Security Council resolution.”
He pointed out that Iran would need Russian support for the Tor, an older Russian air defense system supplied a few years ago. “There are some opportunities to work on other air defense systems that are beyond the scope of the resolution. We will draft an agenda for cooperation with Iran. This agenda is quite large,” Dmitriyev said.
Russia has not offered to pay any interest on the Iranian down payment, which it has presumably been holding for more than three years since the S-300 contract was signed in 2007.
The S-300 contract was voided by Russia last September 22. Five months have now passed without any action by Russia on the down payment.
Russia’s refusal to sell the S-300 is a unilateral sanction on Iran. That is surprising given that Russia has been extremely vocal and repetitive since last summer in publicly opposing the issuance of unilateral sanctions by other countries that go beyond the sanctions listed in last June’s UN resolution.