Vladimir Putin said on the eve of Yom Kippur that Russia will take “steps that everyone will notice” in response to the Russian intelligence plane that was shot down in Syria. Last week, his defense minister Sergey Shoygu made good on that threat when he announced three steps to bolster the Syrian army’s defenses and limit Israel’s aerial freedom of operations in Syria and likely in Lebanon as well.

These are the three steps, arranged according to the level of severity.

1. Provide the Syrian aerial defense apparatus with Russian-made anti-aircraft S-300 missile batteries.

2. Provide the Syrian aerial defense apparatus with modern electronic control and monitoring systems. This will allow the Syrians to better differentiate between enemy and friendly planes and automatically “lock” onto hostile targets without requiring a decision from the battery commander, which could lead to mistakes. This system will also apparently allow the Russian aerial defense commanders in Syria to control both the S-300 and the Syrian army’s other missile systems.

3. Use electronic and cyber warfare to disrupt GPS navigating systems and radars installed on fighter jets that Russia wants to prevent from nearing Syrian or Lebanese airspace or from attacking targets in Syria. Russian Defense Minister Shoygu may not have said this measure was meant to prevent Israeli jets from reaching areas from which they could fire into Syria or to disrupt missiles or bombs the IAF launches, but it’s clear the Israeli Air Force’s fighter jets and precision-guided arms were what the Russians had in mind.

Read the full article at Ynet here.