Russia asserts itself in Mideast

The Strelets to be sold can't be "unnoticeably handed over to terrorist" groups, Putin said, adding that the systems do make it "more difficult [for Israel] to make low-altitude flights over the residence of the president of Syria."

Mr. Sharon this week criticized the deal "as a danger to Israel" and noted that Putin "always repeats one thing - that he would take no step to endanger Israel," a nation where almost a quarter of the population is made up of the million Jews that left the Soviet Union in that empire's final years.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov dismissed Israeli concerns on Tuesday, saying that Russian technicians have "vividly demonstrated" to Israeli experts that the Strelets can't be fired unless attached to their motorized launcher.

"This will not harm the balance of forces in the region [because] Israel significantly surpasses Syria in military terms," said Mr. Ivanov. Calling such a system portable was "like saying submarines can fly."

"It's a good signal," says Ivan Safranchuk, the head of the Moscow office of the Center for Defense Information. "By explaining [that the missiles can't be made portable], it signals that Russia doesn't want them to end up in terrorist hands, and that Russian arms sales are terror-resistant."

Though the Soviet Union backed Arab allies like Syria with billions of dollars worth of arms sales and loans during the cold war, and had especially close ties with Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Liberation Organization, Russia's ties with Israel began to improve at the turn of the millennium.

"They were the only two countries talking about international terrorism then - Clinton and Bush didn't talk about it until after 9/11," says Mr. Safranchuk.

Still, fissures began to emerge in 2003, with the start of the prosecution for tax evasion of Russia's Yukos oil company, and a sense in Israel that there was an anti-Jewish element to the attack on CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Opposition also grew in Russia - in concert with some signs of emerging anti-Semitism in recent years - when the closer Russia-Israel ties became public.

This complex relationship helps explain why Mos-cow's Mideast efforts remain a case study in ambiguity. Safranchuk ticks off theories that explain the Syria sale, few of which he says can be ruled out.

One reason could be that the air-defense missile deal is "all about money, but Russia feels uncomfortable to confess it," and so "masks" it with political talk, says Safranchuk.

Or, he says, Russia may be creating a bargaining chip to sacrifice in its bid to get the fugitive billionaires extradited from Israel - a hot topic in the local press.

Page: 1 | 2