Gallia- wrote:Buying F-35 or S-400 is quite literally a "political issue". That's the whole point.
South Korea got KM-SAM because Russia owned them oodles of money from the Cold War. They got two battalions worth of T-80/BMP-3 that they use for aggressor training in 1995 and 2005. They got an IRBM made for them (Hyunmoo-2), and some helicopters (Ka-32s), and could have potentially got an attack helicopter (I think it was a development of Ka-50) too. The USA has very few problems, if any, with selling F-35 to ROKAF because it produces its own equipment and it's not very likely to run off and sell it to the Russians in exchange for industrial assistance. The South Koreans would be helping the Russians with their industry, like they did in the Cold War, and like what got the Russians so indebted to the USSR/Russia in the first place. Now Russia is trying to act like ROK is India and squeeze them for more contracts but the line of debit seems to be running dry.
OTOH Turkey is probably more likely to sell a single F-35 to Russia, and then take F-35 apart and make their own F-35 with hookers and blow.
And it's more than a buy, you need advisors in your military to train your personal how to operate and man such systems and aircraft, and that means they have a very reliable way of spying or otherwise attaining sensitive military information while they are on site.