NEW DELHI – Army chief General Bipin Rawat has said that it is criticalthat India find ways to bypass American sanctions against Russia, giventhat Russian-origin weaponry is in widespread use in the Indian armedforces, Hindustan Times has reported.
In his first comments on US sanctions against India’s top arms supplier,Rawat said: “We have to pursue own national interests and see what’s goodfor us. India has a large quantity of Russian weapons and platforms. Sothere are legacy issues.”
India is in talks with the United States to secure a sanctions waiver asits military is heavily dependent on Russian equipment, and the matter islikely to be discussed during the proposed 2+2 talks between the defenceand foreign ministers of the two sides, said a person familiar with thedevelopment who asked not to be identified.
The dialogue was to begin in Washington on July 6 but the US postponed it(for the third time) because its secretary of state Mike Pompeo had tovisit North Korea.
The US sanctions could be bypassed through an alternative payment route tosustain bilateral Indo-Russian defence trade, said Rawat. “It’s not justabout new equipment, other aspects such as spares, servicing and technicalsupport are equally important,” the army chief said.
Russian-origin equipment forms the backbone of the army’s armoured andmechanised infantry units.
The US passed the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Actearlier this year. The new US legislation does provide some flexibility forcountries such as India that are dependent on Russian equipment, butWashington wants India to diversify its suppliers of military equipment andreduce dependence on Russian military hardware.
“Whether it’s the army, navy or air force, we have been using Russianequipment for decades. Some of the deals that are coming to fruition now(with Russia) such as the S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems havebeen under discussion for a few years. These factors need to beunderstood,” said a senior government official who did not wish to be named.
The US has already flagged concerns about the proposed sale of the S-400systems to India, saying it would complicate interoperability between theIndian and American militaries.
Figures serve to illustrate India’s dependence on Russian militaryhardware. Russia accounted for 62% of India’s arms imports between 2013 and2017, according to a report released by the Stockholm International PeaceResearch Institute (SIPRI) in March.
On June 5, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said talks on the S-400purchase were in the final stages and that India had told the US that thesanctions cannot impact Indo-Russian military cooperation.
India is likely to ink a Rs 39,000-crore deal with Russia later this yearfor five S-400 missile systems, capable of destroying jets, missiles andunmanned aerial vehicles at a range of 400 km.
If left unaddressed, the issue of sanctions could upset the calculations ofIndia’s military planners, said air vice marshal Manmohan Bahadur (retd),additional director general, Centre for Air Power Studies.
“It is vital that Russian-origin assets, which are in large numbers in thearmed forces, are operationally maintained with continuous flow of sparesand other logistics support,” he said. “We will be using these costlyassets not just during the next few years but for a couple of decades atleast