S-400 Missiles Keep Santa Away From Mideast

“Everyone remembers when Turkey almost shot down Prancer and Dancer two years ago,” said aviation consultant Gary Powers.

Latakia, Syria, December 22 – A spokesman for Santa Claus informed children in the Eastern Mediterranean region that he will be forced to avoid the area this year because of the Russian surface-to-air missile batteries that have been deployed in Syria.

On behalf of Santa and his team of reindeer, spokesman Kristoff Kringle placed ads and arranged for announcements to be made from Turkey to Iraq, as well as parts of the Palestinian Territories, that ensuring the safety of Saint Nicholas and his draft team was the top priority, and as such, they would not fly anywhere near the range of the advanced S-400 systems. As such, Syria, Lebanon, and eastern Turkey will not be on this year’s gift-distribution route. In addition, the precise requirements of scheduling and planning meant that other locations in the region will also be omitted, such as Jordan and some areas of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. The announcement also appeared on Santa’s Facebook page.

Kringle stressed that the saint would still make efforts to deliver gifts to the children of those areas by other means. “If there is one area of the globe where Christian children need encouragement, it’s the Middle East,” he noted. “The only place in the region where the Christian population is actually thriving is Israel. The rest of the place is a mess, with genocide, persecution, suppression, and intimidation. Those kids need some Christmas cheer, and we will try to engineer it for them some other way.” He did not elaborate, but an anonymous elf in Mr. Kringle’s entourage suggested similar means to those employed by Israel in the recent assassination by aircraft-fired missiles of the arch-terrorist Samir Kuntar, a feat which might have required circumventing the S-400’s radar.

Experts say that until the deployment of the S-400, Santa Claus could handily evade anti-aircraft measures in place in Syria, and that the open secret of his contacts in the Israeli military eased his passage through airspace there. But the more formidable new system poses unacceptable risks. “Everyone remembers when Turkey almost shot down Prancer and Dancer two years ago,” said aviation consultant Gary Powers. “Only their speed saved them. The S-400 is much more dangerous.”

Powers wondered aloud whether Santa will try to develop a long-term strategy for the situation, since it appears the Russians are not leaving Syria anytime soon. “On the one hand, it makes sense either to start cultivating a relationship with the Russians, to find some diplomatic channel. Putin is not likely to want to show flexibility – the perceived failure in the eyes of Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah, for example, to prevent Kuntar’s assassination is suspicious enough to them. Further loosening the restrictions of the no-fly zone will not make them happy, especially when it’s just a bunch of Christian children. On the other hand, with the ongoing genocide, persecution, and driving-out of Christians from so much of the Middle East, this is a problem that will eventually solve itself.”