Once, India depended on force power toys from the United States and her western allies. Now, India relies more on Russian arms than American arms, even as India continues to slowly develop its own internal defense technology. For now, India faces real military threats from China and Pakistan, and her reliance on Russia for arms is causing her to take a two-step when it comes to how to address the Ukraine War.
So far, India has not strongly supported or condemned anyone, but some India YouTube news channels that regularly walk lock step with the current government have been decidedly pro Russian, and that might be explained by their dependence on Russia for military power.
Explained: How dependent is India on Russia’s weapons?
From indianexpress.com
2022-03-02 03:49:50
Excerpt:
India was reliant, almost solely on the British, and other Western nations for its arms imports immediately after Independence. But this dependence weaned, and by the 1970s India was importing several weapons systems from the USSR, making it country’s largest defence importer for decades when it came to both basic and sophisticated weapons systems. In fact, it has provided some of the most sensitive and important weapons platforms that India has required from time to time including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, tanks, guns, fighter jets, and missiles.
According to several people, the defence trade, which remains significant, is one of the important causes why India has not taken a critical stand openly against Russia. However, India-Russian ties cannot be viewed only from that perspective.
The legacy of buying weapons from Russia has made India somewhat dependent on it, and even though India has tried to expand the base of countries from which it buys new military systems, Russian-origin weapons still have the lion’s share. According to one estimate, the share of Russian-origin weapons and platforms across Indian armed forces is as…
