NEW DELHI – India has concluded price negotiations with Russia for anearly Rs 40,000 crore deal to procure S-400 Triumf air defence missilesystems for the Indian Air Force, officials said. They said the twocountries are now trying to find a way out to evade the provisions of a USlaw that seeks to punish countries and entities engaged in transactionswith the defence or intelligence establishment of Russia.

“The negotiations for the missile deal have been concluded. The financialcomponent has been finalised,” a top official involved in the negotiationsfor the deal with Russia told PTI. The official said both Russia and Indiaare likely to announce the deal before an annual summit between PrimeMinister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in October 2018.

Two other officials said both sides are now looking at ways to insulate thedeal from the sanctions announced by the US against Russia under itsCountering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The issueis understood to have figured during Modi’s informal talks with Putin inSochi on May 21, 2018.

There has been mounting concerns in India over the US sanctions againstRussian defence majors including Rosoboronexport as billions of dollars ofmilitary purchases may be impacted because of the punitive measure. The UShad announced sanctions against Russia under the stringent law for itsalleged meddling in the American presidential election in 2016.

CAATSA, which came into effect in January 2018, mandates the Donald Trumpadministration to punish entities engaging in significant transaction withthe defence or intelligence establishment of Russia. US Defence SecretaryJim Mattis in April appealed to the Congress to urgently provide India thenational security waiver, saying imposing sanctions under CAATSA for theS-400 air defence missile deal would only hit the US.

India wants to procure the long-range missile systems to tighten its airdefence mechanism, particularly along the nearly 4,000-km-long Sino-Indiaborder and the Pakistan India borders where the missile defence systemwould be deployed in he future.

In 2016, India and Russia had signed an agreement on the ‘Triumf’interceptor-based missile system which can destroy incoming hostileaircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km. S-400 isknown as Russia’s most advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defencesystem.

China was the first foreign buyer to seal a government-to-government dealwith Russia in 2014 to procure the lethal missile system and Moscow hasalready started delivery of unknown number of the S-400 missile systems toBeijing. The S-400 is an upgraded version of the S-300 systems. The missilesystem, manufactured by Almaz-Antey, has been in service in Russia since2007.