India’s arms imports have reduced significantly in the last five years (2017-2021). This is the first such drop after the country recorded a consistent increase for all the five-year periods beginning 1991. Russia has been the most preferred source for India’s defence purchases since at least the 2000s. The exception was 2021 when France replaced Russia as India’s primary source. Despite this deviation, Russia has fulfilled over 46% of India’s defence needs in the last five years. India, China, Egypt, Iraq, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Syria, Algeria and Vietnam were the main importers of arms from Russia in the 2017-2021 period. Among these countries, only India and Vietnam have reduced their dependency on Russia compared to the 2012-2016 period. The rest have, in fact, increased their dependency on Russia.
Drop in imports
The chart shows India’s arms imports in five-year periods. The total imports fell from $19,432 million SIPRI* Trend Indicator Value (TIV) to $15,356 million TIV. The TIV is based on the unit production costs of a core set of weapons and is intended to represent the transfer of military resources rather than the financial value of the transfer. It is a common unit that measures trends in the flow of arms
