Russian arms said to have deterred Israel

Israel lost dozens of tanks, several helicopters and 116 men during its month-long push into southern Lebanon, the heaviest losses it suffered in any of the previous wars against Arabs. This gave Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reason to claim that his men had achieved "a strategic, historic victory" over "a confused, cowardly and defeated" enemy.

Israeli officials blamed the losses on Russian anti-tank grenades and missiles that had been allegedly supplied to Hizbollah by Syria and Iran.

Last week, Tel Aviv dispatched a senior Foreign Ministry official to Moscow to discuss the issue. Russia has denied supplying any weapons to Hizbollah, dismissing the Israeli allegations as "insinuations." However, Israel believes Hizbollah could have received the Russian weapons from Syria and Iran.

Media reports said the Israelis captured a batch of an Iran-made copy of the Russian Konkurs anti-tank missile (AT-5 Spandrel in NATO classification).

Russian experts expressed bewilderment that this wire-guided weapon developed in the Soviet Union more than 30 years ago could be effective against Israel's sophisticated Merkava Mark IV main battle tank, whose add-on and built-in explosive reactive armour makes it one of the best protected tanks in the world.

Israeli army commanders said they also captured some Russian-made Kornet-E and Metis-M anti-tank guided missiles. These are 10-year-old weapons capable of piercing one-metre-thick armour. Russia has supplied both systems to Syria, but they could have also found their way to West Asia from other former Soviet republics. Ukraine in particular was accused of illegally selling 500 Kornet systems to Iraq before the U.S.-led war against that country.

Israeli security sources also claimed the Hizbollah fighters widely used Russian-built RPG-29 "Vampire" grenade launchers, a formidable shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon whose warhead could get through the massive armour of the Israeli tanks at a range of up to 4 km. Hundreds of RPG-29 grenades were sold to Syria in 1998. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry said all weapons supplied to Syria had an end-user certificate that banned their re-export to a third country, and therefore, they could not have ended up in Lebanon.

Whatever the source of Russian-designed or Russian-built weapons in Lebanon, they enabled Hizbollah to effectively employ guerilla warfare tactics to slow and oppose Israel's advance into Lebanon.

Privately, Russian arms manufacturers expressed the hope that the controversy about Russian arms in Lebanon would whet foreign appetite for Russian-made military hardware, as it happened after the 2003 war in Iraq.

"We are grateful to the Israelis for the extra ad work they did for us," a source at a Russian defence factory said.

"This may help us finalise several contracts for the export of small arms."

After the war in Iraq, where 30-year-old Russian air defence systems and anti-tank missiles showed their mettle against state-of-the-art U.S. aircraft and armour, Russia doubled its arms exports.

/www.india-defence.com/