Monday, December 6th, 2021
Moscow wants to deepen relationships
Putin agrees arms deal with India
India was already a close ally of Moscow during the Soviet era. Not surprisingly, then, that Kremlin chief Putin announced an agreement right at the start of his visit to New Delhi. Both countries want to produce hundreds of thousands of assault rifles together. More deals are to follow.
On his first trip abroad in several months, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke out in India for increased military cooperation between the two countries. According to Putin in New Delhi, Putin said to the Tass agency in New Delhi that “relations are to be expanded both at the international level and directly in the military sphere.”
Among other things, the two countries agreed to manufacture more than 600,000 Russian AK-203 assault rifles in an Indian factory as an Indo-Russian joint venture. The agreement is an addition to a cooperation that will run until 2031, said a spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Defense. According to media reports, the assault rifles for the Indian army cost the equivalent of around 587 million euros.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the meeting with Putin: “In the past two decades the world has seen fundamental shifts and changes in geopolitical balances, but the friendship between India and Russia has remained a constant.”
For Russia, India – the second most populous country in the world – is an important armaments customer. India has had close ties with the former Soviet Union and then with Russia since the Cold War. For a long time, Russia also played an important role in equipping the Indian army. However, India would like to diversify its arms imports, it also imports from the USA.
Putin’s visit comes at a time when the delivery of Russian anti-missile defense systems to India could mean US sanctions. India, known as the “world’s pharmacy”, also produces the Russian corona vaccine Sputnik V. In the future, the production of the preparation Sputnik Light is also planned there, as Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was also in New Delhi, said.