Russia has positioned an S-300 strategic air defense battery in the breakaway Georgian enclave of Abkhazia, Russian air force chief Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said Aug. 11. According to a STRATFOR source close to the Kremlin, the S-300PM battery, which has a range of 93 miles (150 kilometers), has been in place since February. Though the official Russian announcement focused on the battery as a means of defending Abkhazia, the range of the missiles deployed in Abkhazia allow Moscow to command access to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi from the Black Sea and, combined with a pair of S-300V batteries in Armenia, almost the entire air approach to Tbilisi from Turkey.
