On March 12, a Russian official announced that Moscow will accelerate the delivery of S-400 air and missile defense systems to Turkey due to a request from Ankara. “Turkey expressed a wish to accelerate its implementation and we managed to find the most appropriate solution as we agreed to accelerate the contract’s implementation, so I think we will begin to fulfill it sometime in early 2020,” Vladimir Kozhin told the state-owned Rossiya 24 news network. The reported $2.5 billion deal includes four batteries of S-400 missiles, and will make Turkey the first NATO member country to acquire the system.