S-400 supplies on table during Modi’s Russia visit

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, July 6

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin would sit down for talks on July 9, on the table, among other things, will be New Delhi’s request to resume supplies of the S-400 air defence missiles.

Modi-Putin talks, the highest level of India-Russia talks, will happen amid the backdrop that India’s military imports from Russia are at the lowest in sixty years with India producing several parts and components on its own and also due to shift in options to source from western countries.

A small factor is how Russian companies have set up joint ventures for manufacturing in India for rifles and ammunition.

Sweden-based Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in its report on March 10 this year revealed the decline India’s dependence on Russia. It said “Although Russia remained India’s main arms supplier (accounting for 36 per cent of its imports), this ( 2019-2023) was the first five-year period since 1960-64 when deliveries from Russia (or the Soviet Union before 1991) made up less than half of India’s arms imports”.

During the same period France and the US supplied 33 per cent and 13 per cent of the equipment, respectively, to India.

Russia’s share of Indian arms import pie has shrunk from 76 per cent in 2009–13 and to 58 per cent during the period 2014–18.

India is the world’s top arms importer and accounted for 9.8 per cent of all global arms sales between 2019-2023, the SIPRI said. The SIPRI tracks arms sales globally and publishes an annual report.

Five such S-400 missile systems are on order under a $5-billion deal signed in October 2018, three have been delivered despite US pressure and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.