India distanced itself from friend Russia? For the first time after 40 years, America and France bought the least amount of weapons
The impact of Ukraine war is now clearly visible on the defense relations between India and Russia. Between 2019 and 2023, this is the first time in 40 years that arms exports from Russia to India have decreased by 50 percent. According to the latest report of SIPRI, India still takes maximum arms from Russia but this figure has fallen to 36 percent of the total arms. Earlier, between 1960 and 1964, the share of Russia (former Soviet Union) in India’s total arms imports was less than 50 percent. SIPRI said that India was the largest arms importing country between 2019 and 2023. On one hand, Russia is lagging behind, while on the other hand, America and France have become better. Both these countries are competing in the arms market.
Stockholm-based organization SIPRI said that India’s arms imports increased by 4.7 percent between 2014-18 and 2019-23. Russia had only 36 percent stake in this. Russia was the country that exported the most arms to India. Even if we talk about the world, Russia’s influence has reduced. Russia has now reached third place in the world in terms of arms exports. Till now, Russia used to come after America, but between the year 2019 and 2023, Russia reached the third place. Russia has been replaced by another friendly country of India, France.
India got delayed in getting S-400
Russia’s arms exports have declined by 53 percent. At the same time, France’s arms exports have increased by 47 percent. In the year 2019, 31 countries were buying arms from Russia, but in the year 2023, this figure has fallen to 12 countries. This also includes India, which remains the largest buyer of Russian arms. Despite reduction in arms imports, India is still buying oil and gas from Russia on a large scale. Let us tell you that there was a lot of pressure on India from America and NATO countries to stay away from Russian weapons. There is also a fact in this that due to the war, Russia is not able to supply systems like S-400 on time.
About 65 percent of India’s total weapons are of Russian origin. At the same time, India is also purchasing arms on a large scale from America and France so that its dependence on any one country can be reduced. The effect of pressure from Western countries was that Egypt did not make a fighter jet deal with Russia. After American pressure on Egypt, it is now making a fighter jet deal with France. France has become a big player in the world arms market and India has also made deals with it for many arms and missiles including Rafale. In a way, France has become a second France for India. China is now giving competition to Russia in the arms export market and has reached the fourth position.
