Arms trade

Selling S-400s to China: a New Front in the Cold War?

The director general of Rosoboronexport, Russia’s main defense exporter, recently confirmed the existence of a contract to sell S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to China. Based on anonymous sources, the Russian media began reporting on the sale as early as November 2014. The contract itself had likely been signed even earlier. It is useful to keep this timeline in mind when estimating the probable date by which China will obtain the missile systems—most likely sometime in 2016.