Russia has refused to scrap plans to provide Syrian President Bashar Assad with high-powered missiles – claiming it will help deter ‘hotheads’ intent on intervention in the two-year-old conflict.

The announcement comes as Russia accused the European Union allowed of ‘throwing fuel on the fire’ by letting its own arms embargo on Syria expire.

Israel and France had urged Moscow to refrain from sending high-precision S-300 missile systems to President Bashar al-Assad’s government, which is battling a Western and Gulf Arab-backed insurgency.

But Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov suggested the air defence system would be useful in deterring any intervention in the conflict.

‘We think this delivery is a stabilising factor and that such steps in many ways restrain some hotheads from exploring scenarios in which this conflict could be given an international character with participation of outside forces,’ he told a news conference.

Russian officials have not disclosed whether S-300s have actually been sent to Syria and Ryabkov would not specify.

Earlier Ryabkov said the European Union’s failure to renew an arms embargo on Syria would undermine the chances for peace talks that Moscow and Washington are trying to organise.