Putin warns Israel: Selling arms to Ukraine would provoke Russian S-300 sales to Syria too

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning to Israel against selling arms to Kiev - in retaliation for the S-300 air-defense missiles Russia has released for Iran – adds a European dimension to the dispute by planting Israel squarely in the middle of Moscow’s Ukraine dispute with the United States. The Russian leader’s implied threat to hit back by sending the same missile system to Syria as well as Iran, touches on another dispute between Russia on the one side and the US and Israel on the other, namely the Syria conflict.

Whereas critics of the Netanyahu government highlight its falling-out with the Obama administration over the Iranian nuclear issue, they disregard the intense US-Israeli military cooperation in two vital regions of conflict – Syria and Ukraine.

This working relationship is not lost on Putin.

The intelligence updates placed on his Kremlin desk reveal that, just as the US and Israel (and Jordan) have been arming rebel forces fighting in southern Syria, they are also working together to give the Ukrainian army the weapons for breaking its incendiary standoff with the pro-Russian separatists.

In the last fortnight, thousands of military advisers from the United States, Canada, France, the UK and Germany were shipped into Ukraine to train the national army. Due in the coming days are 290 officers and troops of the American 173 Airborne Brigade.

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