The Indian Air Force, for the first time, has acknowledged that the arms delivery from Russia is delayed due to the ongoing war with Ukraine. The matter came to light after an IAF representative told the parliamentary committee that due to the Ukraine war a “major delivery” from Moscow “is not going to take place.”
"As far as projection is concerned, our projection last year was Rs. 85,000 crores and we finally got an allocation of Rs. 57,000 crores which we consumed. This year, the projection itself has been less because of this Russia-Ukraine war as some of our deliveries are not taking place," the committee replied in response to a sharp decline in BE projection as compared to the last year’s projection.
"So, we have already been told that those deliveries will not take place. So, we have taken that part of the component out," it added.
India's defence imports dropped from 62% to 45%
It is worth mentioning Russia is all weather-tested friend of India-- at least after the Cold War. Since then, New Delhi is heavily dependent on Russia for its military requirements. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Moscow remains New Delhi's largest arms supplier, despite a drop in defence imports from 62% to 45% between 2017 and 2022.
However, there are reports that the defence import declined amid the fact India has started promoting its home-grown technology.
India-Russia relations
On the other side, Moscow is greatly hit by the Western sanctions. On multiple occasions, Kremlin accepted that its defence sector got a major blow after the Ukraine war. This can be also understood by the recent clash between Russia's private military group, Wagner, and the Russian army. The Commander of the Wagner group complained that they were not provided sufficient arms in the ongoing brutal war.
"I think it underscores the problems that (India) has been bedevilling this relationship for quite some time,” Harsh V. Pant, vice president of studies and foreign policy at the New Delhi-based think thank Observer Research Foundation told CNN. “And the Ukraine crisis has accelerated the trend that India, for a very long time, has been trying to diversify, and was concerned about its over-dependence on Russia," he added.
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