The United States aims to demonize the Lebanese paramilitary Hezbollah party by spreading information about the alleged Russian Yakhont missiles it is armed with, a source close to the political leadership of Hezbollah told Izvestia. This is how he commented on the Reuters report published on November 9. Anonymous interlocutors of the British agency claimed that the leader of Hezbollah, Syed Hassan Nasrullah, saying last week that his party "has something in store for American ships," meant exactly the "Yachts." According to Western media, the presence of such missiles from Hezbollah may pose a serious threat to the US Navy carrier strike group that arrived in the Mediterranean to support Israel.
The United States aims to demonize the Lebanese paramilitary Hezbollah party by spreading information about the alleged Russian Yakhont missiles it is armed with, a source close to the political leadership of Hezbollah told Izvestia. This is how he commented on the Reuters report published on November 9. Anonymous interlocutors of the British agency claimed that the leader of Hezbollah, Syed Hassan Nasrullah, saying last week that his party "has something in store for American ships," meant exactly the "Yachts." According to Western media, the presence of such missiles from Hezbollah may pose a serious threat to the US Navy carrier strike group that arrived in the Mediterranean to support Israel.
Demonization of Hezbollah
Information about the likely presence of Russian Yakhont missiles in Hezbollah appeared in Western media on November 9, citing Reuters sources in Lebanon. The agency 's interlocutors claimed: Syed Hassan Nasrullah was referring specifically to the Russian Yakhont anti-ship missiles when he said last week that "Hezbollah has something in store for American ships." They have a range of up to 300 km and a flight speed of about 4 thousand km / h.
A source of Izvestia in Lebanon, close to the political leadership of Hezbollah, said that he had no information about the presence of Yakhont missiles in the paramilitary wing of the movement.
— Such publications can be regarded from the position of intimidation by the United States and attempts to demonize the Lebanese paramilitary party. Exactly the same strategy was used by the Americans in Iraq as an excuse to justify their invasion in 2003," the interlocutor of Izvestia stressed.
At the same time, he noted that the appearance of such weapons from Hezbollah "could become a very serious deterrent to US actions in the region."
Direct evidence of the presence of Yakhont missiles from Hezbollah has not yet appeared, although Western media have been talking about it since 2013, said Yuri Lyamin, a missile weapons specialist and military expert, in an interview with Izvestia. Supporters of this version are based on the fact that shortly before the start of the civil war in Syria, in 2011, Russia supplied 72 Yakhont missiles to the Syrian army as part of the Bastion coastal missile system.
— There are no photos or video frames to make it possible to unequivocally talk about the presence of "Yakhonts" in Hezbollah. Although the situation in 2013-2014 in Syria was such that Bashar al-Assad could indeed transfer some weapons to Hezbollah, fearing that it would fall into the hands of terrorists. The movement was then an active ally of Assad and participated in the fighting on his side, — said Yuri Lyamin.
The expert admitted that a certain number of medium-range anti-ship missiles, not necessarily Russian-made, may be in the hands of Hezbollah.
— The peculiarity of this movement is the ability to keep your secrets. Back in 2006, Chinese S-704 anti-ship missiles got to them, as they wrote at the time, but this weapon was shown on video only in 2019. Assuming that a certain number of Syrian "Yahonts" or Iranian missiles are on the territory of Lebanon, Hezbollah is quite capable of servicing them so that they retain their combat qualities. Hezbollah has long been not just an armed group, it is actually a real army, although not very large in number, but operating in close cooperation with the Syrian and Iranian armies. Therefore, the issue of high—quality training of service personnel for certain missile systems is not worth it for them," he added.
Are "Yakhonts" dangerous for American ships
Speaking about the real threat of using the Yakhont missile defense system against the US Navy carrier strike group operating in the region, Yuri Lyamin recalled the limited range of this type of missiles.
— There is no need for American ships to enter the zone of destruction of the Yakhont missile defense system. The carrier group can hit targets to a depth of up to 1.5 thousand km, and the range of destruction of the "Yakhont" is only up to 300 km. In addition, to be guaranteed to hit an aircraft carrier or a cruiser, precise targeting and a massive missile strike are needed. Several "Yakhonts", even launched simultaneously, will not be able to hit an aircraft carrier group on combat duty and will be destroyed at a safe distance," the expert stressed.
In 2011, Russia supplied 72 Yakhont anti-ship missiles to the Syrian army as part of the Bastion coastal missile complex. The official Syrian authorities did not declare the loss of control over this type of missile weapon. No cases of combat use of Syrian Yakhont missiles during the armed conflict on the territory of the State have been reported.
The Yakhont missile defense system is an export version of the Russian Onyx—type anti-ship missiles, which were used in the course of conducting an SVO on the coastal targets of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The export version differs from the Onyx with more limited range and accuracy characteristics.
