Chandigarh: Russia’s status as India’s prime materiel provider for over six decades is steadily declining, as subtly evidenced during external affairs minister S. Jaishankar’s recently concluded Moscow visit, aimed at boosting bilateral strategic, defence, diplomatic and political ties, between hoary allies.
Little other than shibboleths and routine effusive hyperbole emerged officially after Jaishankar’s interactions with various Russian leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, during his five-day trip, particularly with regard to military commerce between the two sides. Significantly, there was no public mention, or even hint, of revised schedules in delivering assorted outstanding Russian platforms to India, alongside badly-needed spares and associated kit for in-service equipment.
Nor was there any indication of the two sides having resolved the knotty problem of India paying Russia for military gear, which has been bedevilling both sides for 12-14 months, after US-led sanctions were imposed on Russia for invading Ukraine, in February 2022.
Instead, after meeting Jaishankar, his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov evasively declared that both sides had ‘discussed’ the prospects of military and technical cooperation, including the joint production of modern weaponry’ as part Delhi’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, but declined to elaborate further on its contours.
Tellingly, Lavrov also stated that Russia was ‘respectful’ of India’s aspiration to ‘diversify’ its military equipment and related technical links, openly conceding Moscow’s acceptance of the reality of its foremost and long-standing materiel customer seeking alternate suppliers. Jaishankar, for his part, too did not elaborate on India’s defence partnership with Russia, stressing instead that bilateral trade between the two states was an at time high of $50 billion boosted, no doubt, by India’s bulk oil imports following sanctions.
A quick evaluation of the prevailing state of India-Russia defence ties is revealing.
State of affairs
India at present awaits delivery of three of five Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumf self-propelled surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems, four Admiral Grigorovich Project 1135.6M frigates- two of which are to be built by Goa Shipyard Limited under a transfer of technology from Russia- and the possible leasing of one more Project 971 ‘Akula’ (Schuka-B)-class nuclear powered submarine (SSN) for around $3 billion, that was scheduled for delivery to the Indian Navy (IN) by 2025. This latter charter, however, remains chancy for a variety of local construction problems and sanctions-related complications and, according to industry officials, could be scrapped- if it had not been already-despite considerable advance payments for the 2019 contract having reportedly been effected.
Supplying India’s military 70,000-80,000 Kalashnikov AK-203 7.62x39mm assault rifles, as part of the December 2021 tender to locally licence build 601,427 of them at a facility in Korwa in Uttar Pradesh, near Amethi, too remained a work in progress. This latter deferral had resulted in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) recently approving the import of 73,000 additional Sig Sauer SIG716 ‘Patrol’ rifles from the US for Rs 840 crores at the behest of the Indian Army (IA). The IA Chief of Staff, General Manoj Pande, had confidently declared earlier this year that his force would begin receiving the Ak-203’s by March, which obviously had not fructified. Additionally, India also awaited varied Russian missiles like man-portable Very Short Range Defence Systems (VSHORADS) and assorted other ammunition.
Also read: Russian Rifle Delays Raise Concerns Over Deliveries from Moscow
Further exacerbating India’s woes with regard to military equipment purchases from Russia, was the pertinent issue of Delhi owing $3-4 billion to Moscow as recurring payment for platforms, spares and related apparatus, all of which had accumulated over the several past months. In turn, this unsettled amount had resulted in Moscow ‘pausing’ all further credit to Delhi for its defence buys. Furthermore, Indian currency, routed via ‘vostro’ accounts through Russia’s Sherbank and VTB Bank respectively, for payments undertaken under the mutually agreed rupee-rouble protocol had, to Moscow’s financial chagrin, simply piled up.
This was due to Indian banks continued wariness over exploring other forms of payments to Russia, via other currencies, as suggested by Moscow, for fear of inviting secondary sanctions from the US and its allies. On several previous occasions Lavrov had reiterated that Moscow faced the problem of a ‘rupee surfeit’, which was simply ‘unusable, as it was not a globally tradeable currency. The Russian foreign minister had also rejected Delhi’s offer of Russia utilising the rupees from its weapon-and oil- sales to invest in Indian debt and capital markets, leaving the problem seemingly unresolved during Jaishankar’s recent visit, according to official accounts.
Stated inability
Moreover, Russia’s defence industrial complex had recently expressed its inability to continue delivering materiel to its many clients, including India, as it needed to prioritise ‘manufacturing and supplying products to the Russian Army’. In a press statement in October, Russia’s joint stock arms export company Rosonboronexport had admitted to the ‘pressing challenges faced by the country’s defence industry and the system of military-technical co-operation’.
Accordingly, it offered its potential foreign partners ‘new formats of co-operation within the global arms market trends’ that included ‘technology partnerships’ which the corporation estimated would double to 40% by 2030. Responding to this declaration, a cross-section of security and industry officials in New Delhi interpreted it as an ‘admittance’ by Russian defence companies of their inability to ‘effectively’ continue delivering military equipment to their overseas clients, due to Moscow’s urgent requirements to execute its Ukraine campaign.
“For India to persist in its dependence on Russia for its military equipment needs would not only be unrealistic, considering the sanctions-related constraints, but also operationally ruinous, given the battlefield setbacks Moscow has endured in Ukraine because of deploying. sub-standard materiel” said analyst Brigadier Rahul Bhonsle of the Security Risks consultancy in Delhi. It’s time, he added, for India to jettison its dependency on Russia’s military industrial complex and look inwards and elsewhere overseas to fulfil these obligations.
Geopolitics
Even India’s senior-most soldier, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan had declared recently that the geopolitical importance of Russia was declining, despite it being a nuclear weapons state. Delivering the 14th Air Chief Marshal L.M. Katre memorial lecture in Bengaluru in early October, Gen Chauhan stated that the Wagner rebellion-referring to the stillborn mutiny by Moscow’s state-funded rogue private army-indicated Russia’s internal weakness and reflected what adversity may lie in store for its future.
Declining defence trade with Moscow in recent years, which a few examples indicate, only serves to further endorse the proliferating view in India’s military and security circles of Russian unreliability.
The Indian Air Force (IAF), for instance, had opted to bypass Moscow in upgrading 84 of its Sukhoi Su-30MKI’s to ‘Super Sukhoi’ standards, in its first retrofit tranche, even though it had earlier been in talks with its Russian manufacturers for the platforms makeover. Also, the MoD had more or less decided to scrap the $1.2 billion 2014 tender for 200 Russian Kamov Ka-226T ‘Hoodlum’ light utility helicopters for the IAF and the Army Aviation Corps, of which 60 were to be acquired in fly-away condition, and the rest series-built under a transfer of technology.
Army and Navy ditch Russian options
And official sources told The Wire that for a variety of operational, availability and sustainability considerations, the IAF considered that even evaluating two fuel-intensive Russian fighters for its proposed acquisition of 114 multi-role fighter aircraft (MRFA), was ‘irrational and unworkable’. They said the IAF continued to display lack of enthusiasm in even assessing United Aircraft Corporation and Sukhoi Corporation’s offer of MiG-35 ‘Fulcrum-F’ and Su-35’ Flanker-E’ for this tender, for which five other fighter makers had expressed interest in response to the forces April 2018 Request for Information or RfI.
The IN, too had ditched the prospect of inducting Russian fighters into its new aircraft carrier’s combat air arm, to supplement the 45 twin-engine MiG29K/KUBs it had acquired between 2004 and 2010 for $2.29 billion, and which had proven to be operationally inadequate. The service was presently in advanced negotiations to embark 26 French Rafale (Marine) fighters aboard INS Vikrant that was commissioned late last year. The IN is also believed to have halted negotiations with Russia to acquire 10 additional Kamov Ka-31’Helix’ airborne early warning helicopters for $520 million, approved by the MoD in May 2019, for deployment aboard Vikrant, following uncertainty in supplies due to sanctions and attendant payment mechanisms, which endure and threaten to become even more acute.
The IA, on the other hand, that operates 3,500-odd licence-built Russian T72M1 ‘Ajeya’ main battle tank variants and directly imported and domestically assembled and constructed T90S ‘Bhishma’ platforms, is almost certain not to acquire any more Russian tanks in future. Recent proposals to import Russian-origin Spurt-SDM1 light amphibious tank were summarily abandoned in favour of Zorawar, the indigenously designed light tank, whose prototype was expected to begin trials early next year.
Homegrown
A domestic alternative is also imminent to supplement and eventually replace around 800-odd of the IA’s licence built Soviet-era Boyevaya Mashina Pyekhoty (BMP)2/2K ‘Sarath’ infantry combat vehicles (ICVs) via the local, but long deferred Future Combat Vehicle (FRCV) programme. This envisages the development of a ‘family’ of tracked armoured vehicles which other than MBTs, would include ICVs and tank recovery and bridge-laying variants. However, the blighted Ak-203 rifles would, once they emerge, remain the IA’s sole contemporary Russian hardware induction in multiple years.
Considering the aforementioned actualities, it’s obvious that the sun is setting swiftly on India’s continued reliance on Russian defence equipment, even though Moscow will, no doubt, take commercial solace from the fact that some 60% of India’s overall in-service military platforms were of Russian and Soviet-era origin, and in need of support and sustenance for several more decades.
Nonetheless, the impending end of an epoch beginning the early 1960s, in which India steadily built its arsenal with Russian assistance, for an estimated $70 billion is never easy; but it remains necessary for future security in a turbulent environment.