Exclusive: A Russian Pantsir air defence missile system captured on a Libyan battlefield was flown intact to a US air base in Germany in a covert mission, The Times has learnt. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-missile-system-spirited-out-of-libya-by-us-hjjtz0kd2

The operation involved sending a team on a US air force C-17 Globemaster cargo plane to Zuwara airport, west of Tripoli, last June to load the battery and transport it back to the Ramstein base

A Russian official said Moscow was aware the US removed the Pantsir but suggested its capture would be of limited intelligence value..Export versions..are stripped of a carefully guarded identification friend or foe database with the transponder codes for Russian air force jets

After its capture from Watiya airbase on May 18 2020 fighters transported the Pantsir to Zawiya where it was seized by a notorious militia commander called Mohamed Bahroun, nicknamed the Rat...However, forces under the interior minister forced Bahroun’s fighters to hand it over

Observers said the episode reflected favourably neither on Russia nor the UAE, which brought the Pantsir to Libya.

“It’s remarkable that a state which is a major importer of US weapons would then hand a sophisticated weapons system to a warlord who handles it so recklessly that it then falls into the hands of a potentially dangerous militia leaders on the other side,” said @W_Lacher