India moves ahead to take delivery of S-400 missile defence system from Russia

The Biden administration has remained non-committal on granting the waiver for India from the CAATSA sanctions, despite growing clamour from lawmakers

India has moved ahead to take delivery of the S-400 Triumf missile defence systems from Russia, even as its plea for a waiver from the CAATSA (Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) sanctions has not yet elicited a categorical response from the United States.

India is receiving the new missile defence systems from Russia when it is engaged in a military stand-off with China along the Line of Actual Control – the de facto boundary between the two nations.

Pakistan too of late restarted flouting truce along the country’s Line of Control with India – after a lull for a few months. A source in New Delhi said that India would deploy the S-400 Triumf missile defence systems in strategic locations to neutralise threats coming in from the airspace of Pakistan and China.

The Tass on Sunday quoted the head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, Dmitry Shugayev, stating that work had already begun to arrange S-400 supplies to India.

It also quoted Alexander Mikheyev, the Director General of Rosoboronexport JSC of Russia, stating that the delivery would begin before the end of the year. The Rosoboronexport JSC looks after Russia’s export and import of military hardware.

Read | Discussions with US underway on S-400: India

Shugayev and Mikheyev spoke to journalists separately at the Dubai Air Show, an aerospace exhibition which commenced in the most populous city of the United Arab Emirates on Sunday.

India in October 2018 inked a $5.4 billion deal to buy five S-400 Triumf long-range surface-to-air missile systems from Almaz-Antey Corporation of Russia.

The deal put India at risk of being subjected to US sanctions under Section 231 of the CAATSA, which Biden’s predecessor President Donald Trump had signed into law in August 2017.

The Section 231 of the CAATSA mandates secondary sanctions to any nation entering into high-value deals to procure military hardware from Russia. The US already placed entities in China and Turkey under the CAATSA sanctions for procuring S-400 missile defence systems from Russia.

India has been asking the US to grant it a waiver from the CAATSA sanctions, arguing that it could not abruptly lessen its dependence on military hardware from Russia, given the decades-old defence ties between the two nations.

It also pointed out that it needed the S-400 missile defence systems from Russia, in view of escalating tension along the India-China disputed boundary.

But the Biden administration remained non-committal on granting the waiver for India from the CAATSA sanctions, despite growing clamour for it from the US lawmakers.

Wendy Sherman, US Deputy Secretary of State, last month acknowledged during a visit to New Delhi that India’s decision to buy S-400 Triumf missile defence systems from Russia was a “problem” in the relationship between New Delhi and Washington DC, as it was not in the security interests of anyone.

A source in New Delhi said that commencement of the delivery would be formally announced by the two sides when Prime Minister Narendra Modi would host Russian President Vladimir Putin for the annual summit early next month.

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