MOSCOW, April 5 (RIA Novosti) - New S-400 Triumf air defense missile systems will be put on combat duty around Moscow in late August, a senior air defense commander said Thursday.
"We are expecting to receive S-400 systems in July-August, and put them on combat duty to protect the airspace around the capital at the end of August," said Colonel-General Yury Solovyov, commander of the Air Defense Forces Special Command (former Moscow Military District Air Defense Command).
The S-400 Triumf (NATO codename SA-21 Growler) is a new air defense missile system developed by the Almaz Central Design Bureau as an upgrade of the S-300 family.
It has been designed to intercept and destroy airborne targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers (250 miles), or twice the range of the MIM-104 Patriot, and 2.5 times that of the S-300PMU-2.
The general said that the system could be also used for limited purposes in missile and space defense, but that it is not intended to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles.
However, he said the system is highly capable of destroying stealth aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles with an effective range of up to 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) and a speed of up to 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) per second.
The Russian Air Defense Forces currently deploy more than 30 regiments equipped with S-300 missile complexes, which will be gradually replaced with S-400 systems.
