Ukraine War Delaying Russian Weapons Supplies to India

India is perturbed over Russia’s delay in delivery of weapons because of its war against Ukraine.

The IAF statement was made to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, which published it on its website on March 21. An IAF official told the panel that Moscow had planned a "major delivery" this year that will not take place.

While it not share specifics, the biggest ongoing Russian delivery to India is of the S-400 Triumf air defence system the latter bought for $5.4 billion in 2018. Three of these systems have been delivered and two more are awaited.

A spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in New Delhi told Reuters: "We don’t have information which may confirm the stated."

The committee has also said that the Union government should not delay the procurement of additional fighter jets. IAF depends on Russia for spares for its Su-30MKI and MiG-29 fighter jets, the mainstay of the service branch.

According to the latest data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia accounted for $8.5 billion of the $18.3 billion India spent on weapons imports since 2017. India was the largest recipient of Russian arms in 2013–17, but exports to India decreased by 37% between then and 2018-22.

The impact of the war on Russian exports was also highlighted by SIPRI. “It is likely that the invasion of Ukraine will further limit Russia’s arms exports,” said Siemon T Wezeman, senior researcher with the SIPRI Arms Transfers Programme. “This is because Russia will prioritize supplying its armed forces and demand from other states will remain low due to trade sanctions on Russia and increasing pressure from the U.S. and its allies not to buy Russian arms.”

Related news: Ukraine Invasion forces Russia’s Global Arms Exports to Drop Significantly

New Delhi has diversified its weapons arsenal by buying West-made weapons; and has been pushing to indigenously produce its own equipment. Top countries selling arms to India, other than Russia, are France, the United States and Israel.

The Russia-Ukraine war affected the Air Force’s supplies so much that it reportedly slashed its projected capital expenditure on modernization for the financial year ending March 31, 2024, by nearly a third compared to the previous fiscal year.

The service had projected a capital expenditure of INR 853 billion ($10.38 billion) for fiscal 2022-23 and cut it to INR 588 billion ($7.15 billion) in the national budget presented in February.