Russia has completed the transfer of all the S-400 air defense missile systems purchased by Turkey ahead of their contracted schedule. This was announced on Sunday by Alexander Mikheev, director of Russians arms export company Rosoboronexport. The deal is allegedly worth some $2.5 billion (€2.2 billion).

The few Patriot platforms stationed along the Turkish-Syrian border were withdrawn in 2015, and later from Turkey’s Incirlik air base, leaving gaping holes in Turkey’s defence coverage.

Russia’s S-400 missile platform is the best in its class and can’t be compared to the US Patriot system. For one, the Patriot is a defensive system. Second, and more importantly, the Patriot platform is surrounded in myth, and what little performance data is available about it shows a shockingly poor performance.

During the 1991 Gulf War, it only achieved a 25 percent to 50 percent intercept ratio, according to a congressional research service that tried to get to the bottom of what happened later.