Secret Operation: Russia Recovered Israel’s Most Advanced Surface to Air Missile From David’s Sling System After Fired Into Syria

Russian forces have reportedly recovered a surface to air missile from the Israeli David’s Sling air defence system, which landed relatively intact on Syrian territory in July 2019. It is unclear when Russian forces were able to locate the missile, but reports of their acquisition, neutralisation and shipping back to Russia have only recently surfaced. The Russian military notably banned publication of information on the secretive operation for four months until now. The Israeli missile had failed to explode, and represents the most advanced Israeli surface to air missile in service. This is not the first time conflict in Syria has provided Russia's armed forces with the opportunity to acquire and study unexploded munitions, with an American Tomahawk cruise missile being recovered and shipped to Russia for study in 2018 following a massive but largely unsuccessful strike on Syrian forces.

The David's Sling system was jointly developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Systems and America's Raytheon - the latter a specialist in missile defence well known for its work on the THAAD and Patriot systems. The two-stage interceptor is fielded exclusively by the Israeli Defence Forces and is intended to intercept short and lower-intermediate range ballistic and cruise missiles at ranges of over 160km - with a reported but unconfirmed maximum range of over 200km. The platform uses an AESA millimetre three dimensional radar, an infra red seeker and a three way data link. The ability to engage targets at a variety of altitudes provides more versatility than previous systems such as the American MIM-104 Patriot, and the David's Sling is expected to replace this system as well as the older MIM-23 Hawk currently in Israeli service. 

The David's Sling represents arguably the most advanced anti missile system developed outside of Russia, although the Chinese HQ-22 and American GMD and AEGIS systems are close contenders. With the platform having entered service only in 2017 the technologies integrated represent the very best available to both Israel and the United States. Acquisition of the missile will likely allow Russia to better counter advances in the Western Bloc's air defences which overwhelmingly rely on American technology, much of it also developed by Raytheon, as well as potentially reverse engineering some technologies to improve certain aspects of its own anti missile systems. Russia's armed forces began to deploy their latest long range anti missile system from the early 2010s in the form of the S-300V4, which is particularly specialised in countering cruise missiles, and the country's Air Defence Force is expected to induct a number of new anti ballistic missile systems into service in the early 2020s including the S-500 and A-235 long range platforms.