<p >Five years before the fall of the Syrian government in December 2024, the Syrian Arab Army launched its last major offensive operations in January 2020 aiming to eliminate <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/new-intel-chief-slams-policy-syria" target="_blank">Al Qaeda linked</a> jihadist militant groups in the country’s Idlib governate that were sponsored and <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/trump-comments-turkey-unfriendly-takeover-syria-proxy" target="_blank">actively supported </a>by the Turkish state. Syrian advances ended after Turkey launched a <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/turkish-and-syrian-forces-clash-as-damascus-moves-to-recapture-idlib-artillery-and-f-16s-provide-cover-to-jihadist-militants" target="_blank">large scale military intervention</a> to provide air and artillery support to jihadist paramilitaries, which were revealed to have Turkish personnel including officers and special forces <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/22-turkish-soldiers-confirmed-killed-in-syria-as-ankara-intensifies-support-for-jihadist-militants" target="_blank">embedded</a> within their ranks. Following multiple aerial clashes, Russian media on March 6, 2020 <a href="https://topwar.ru/168697-unikalnyj-mig-23-98-sposoben-postavit-na-mesto-vvs-turcii-instrument-o-kotorom-zabyli-v-minoborony-rf.html" >published</a> a pitch for a major upgrade program for the MiG-23ML/MLD fighters that made up the backbone of the Syrian fleet – under the title: “The unique MiG-23-98 is capable of putting the Turkish Air Force in its place.” The upgrade program entailed “the re-equipment of standard MiG-23ML/MF with advanced onboard radars… with an increased energy potential of the transmitting path, as well as software and hardware adaptation of the weapons control systems (of the MiG-23ML family of fighters to the use of modern medium-range air combat guided missiles RVV-AE (R-77), equipped with active radar homing heads of the 9B-1348E type.”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/03/25/article_67e25ffddc5fd7_21387938.jpg" title="Syrian Air Force MiG-23 Fighters"></p><p >The primary goal of the MiG-23-98 upgrade package was to allow Syrian MiG-23s to restore their former significant advantage over Turkish F-16s. While the MiG-23ML/MLD was significantly more capable than the F-16 when first procured by Syria in 1982, with a more powerful sensor suite and a beyond visual range targeting capability which the U.S.-supplied aircraft lacked, much greater investment in modernisation of the F-16 had by the early 2020s long since reversed this. Integration of new sensors on the MiG-23 was seen to be able to provide an effective 70-75 kilometre radar engagement range against F-16s in a jam-free environment, and 50-55 km in a more complex jamming environment. The R-77 would meanwhile provide a comparable range and ‘fire and forget’ capability to the AIM-120 used by the Turkish Air Force. New data links would also allow MiG-23s to operate effectively as part of a network, including using targeting data from ground based air defence systems, as most fighters in the world were able to by the early 2020s.</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/03/25/article_67e260619a8768_09084248.jpg" title="Turkish Air Force F-16D"></p><p > </p><p >“The MiG-23-98 could give a serious rebuff to the Turkish F-16C Block 50+,” the article noted, lamenting: “Unfortunately, neither the expert circles of the Russian Defense Ministry, nor the high-ranking representatives of JSC RSK MiG and the Fazotron-NIIR corporation have ever proposed an initiative to provide the Syrian Air Force with such a ‘package’ of military-technical support, and our key Middle Eastern ally can use the MiG-23ML fighters, which have a huge modernisation reserve, only as carriers of high-explosive fragmentation ‘blanks’.” Although Syria was far <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/last-mig23-sale-syria-from-belarus" target="_blank">more heavily invested</a> in the MiG-23 than any other country, and fielded more of the aircraft than all other operators combined, the immense strain on the country’s economy from over a decade of Western, Turkish and <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-02-03/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israel-just-admitted-arming-anti-assad-syrian-rebels-big-mistake/0000017f-dbb0-db5a-a57f-dbfa71380000" target="_blank">Israeli backed</a> insurgency, and from U.S. and Turkish <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/u-s-forces-smuggled-95-tankers-worth-of-oil-from-syria-over-weekend-damascus-demands-compensation" target="_blank">appropriation</a> of its oil and occupation of its oil and agricultural heartlands, quickly drained possible funds for modernisation of the air force. </p><p >Preceding the outbreak of the insurgency in 2011, Syrian efforts to procure more advanced combat aircraft from Russia, namely MiG-29M fighters and MiG-31BM interceptors, had consistently been <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/mig-31-foxhounds-over-damascus-how-syria-s-game-changing-arms-purchase-would-have-shaken-turkey-and-israel" target="_blank">rebuffed</a> as a result of Western and Israeli pressure on Moscow, as were Syrian efforts to acquire more modern air defence systems such as S-300 and S-400 systems. This left the country with only a limited air defence capability in the face of continued Western, Turkish and Israeli airspace violations, which helped pave the way to the country’s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/interview-syria-defeat-russia-israel-security" target="_blank">eventual defeat</a> in December 2024.</p>
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