Russian Ministry of Defense has signed a contract with Moscow machine-building plant Avangard on delivery of ground-to-air guided missiles for S-400 “Triumph” systems, Lenta.ru reports. The contract has been signed by Minister of Defense of Russia, Anatoly Serdukov, and CEO of Avangard, Gennady Kozhin. The value of the three-year contract has not been unveiled.

The contract on delivery of ground-to-air guided missiles has been signed in the network of State defense order for 2012. According to the agreement, Avangard will receive 100% advance payment, which will also help compensate costs of subcontractors. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, Avangard will become the only supplier of ground-to-air guided missiles for S-400 systems.

The exact type of delivered missiles has not been specified. At present the S-400 air defense systems are using 48N6Е, 48N6Е2 and 48N6Е3 missiles also used by S-300PМ-1 and S-300PМ-2 systems and upgraded 48N6DМ missiles. The development of 9М96Е and 9М96Е2 missiles for S-400 is currently underway along with long-range 40N6Е missile.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian air forces, Alexander Zelin, stated in mid-February that deliveries of new long-range guided missile for S-400, which is currently undergoing the state testing, to the armed forces will be started in late 2012. "The long-range ground-to-air missile with a destruction range of 250 km was being developed in the network of development of S-400 air defense system. Some new scientific and technical problems have been solved during its development, including the ones connected with missile firing over the radar horizon", - the Commander-in-Chief said.

The Russian State program in the area of arms for 2011-2020, which has the amount of finance of $787,38 billion (23 trillion rubles), assumes the acquisition of 56 divisions of S-400 systems (8 ones for each division). It is planned to construct three specialized plants in Russia in order to provide deliveries of S-400 systems. It has been reported earlier that all the enterprises, which are taking part in the production of S-400, will be manufacturing the air defense systems only for Russian armed forces until 2015.