The scales are passed on Ukraine for over a year – Reuters reported on Thursday, citing 11 representatives of the governments of India and EU countries and the defense industry.
According to local arms export regulations, their use is prohibited. limited to named buyerwhich risks having future sales suspended in the event of illegal transfer of products.
According to three Indian officials The Kremlin raised the issue of rearming Ukraine at least twice, including during the July meeting of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Russia Sergei Lavrov with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
War in Ukraine: Indian shell casings arrive east
In January, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal told a press conference that Indie they did not ship or sell shells for artillery shells Ukraine.
Two Indian government officials and two defense industry sources told Reuters that India produced very little of the ammunition used in Ukraine, with one source estimating it to be less than 1 percent of all weapons brought through Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
Reuters stressed that it was unable to verify whether the Indian ammunition was resold to Ukraine by European buyers or donated.
Among the European countries sending ammunition to Ukraine are: Italy i The czech republicwhich took the initiative to supply artillery ammunition from outside European Union.
India is the largest importer of weapons. Billions of dollars in the background
An Indian official said New Delhi was monitoring the situation. A defense industry official with knowledge of the ammunition transfers also said India has taken no action to end supplies to Europe.
India and the US have recently tightened their defence and diplomatic cooperation in the face of strengthening Chinperceived by both countries as the main rival. Both countries maintain warm relations with Russia.which has been the main supplier of arms to Delhi for several decades, and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi refused to join Western sanctions against Moscow – Reuters emphasizes.
India, which is the largest arms importer in the worldhowever, see the prolonged war in Europe as an opportunity to develop their own fledgling arms industry, six Indian sources familiar with government policy said.
India exported weapons worth just over €100 million from 2018 to 2023 3 billion dollars – according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said on August 30 that India's arms exports exceeded 2,5 mld USDand Delhi wants to increase it by 2029 to 6 mld USD.
War in Ukraine. Indian shell casings arrive in Ukraine
Available trade data shows that in the two years before Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, India's three largest ammunition manufacturers – Yantra, Munitions India and Kalyani Strategic Systems – exported to Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain i Slovenia ammunition components worth USD 2.8 million.
From February 2022 to July 2023, this number increased to 135,25 mln USDwhich also included ready-made ammunition.
Arzan Tarapore, an Indian defense expert at Stanford University, said Delhi's decision was a significant factor behind the transfer of weapons to Ukraine. on expanding its arms exports.
– Probably in the process of the last rapid expansion there were violations by the end recipient – he added.
War in Ukraine. Confusion over shells
A former Yantra executive said that among the companies sending Indian missiles to Ukraine was Italian company Meccanica per l'Elettronica e Servomeccanismi (MES), Yantra's largest customer.
According to the mentioned source, MES buys empty shell casings from India and fills them with explosives.
The person said several Western companies can fill bullets with explosives, though they cannot mass-produce shell casings.
Yantra said in its 2022/2023 report that it had entered into an agreement to establish a production line for L15A1 missile casings with an unnamed customer, which a Yantra representative identified as MES.
Customs records show that Yantra supplied MES with 155mm L15A1 projectile shells between February 2022 and July 2024. worth USD 35 million.
Customs records also show that in February 2024, the arms company Dince Hill, based in Great Britainon whose board sits a member of the MES management, exported ammunition from Italy to Ukraine worth USD 6.7 million.
War in Ukraine: Indian shells used against Moscow
In May, Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente published a contract signed by a Czech official on social media. allowing the transfer of bullet casings 120 mm and 125 mm caliber from Munitions India to arms dealer Czech Defence Systems (CDS).
Pro-Palestinian activists claimed that the Indian arms ship Borkum, which docked at one of the Spanish ports, was carrying cargo from Madras to Israel.
However, the Spanish daily El Mundo reported in May that the final destination was Ukraine. This was confirmed to Reuters by a Spanish official and another source familiar with the matter.
Customs data from March 27 show that Munitions India supplied 10,000 cartridges to CDS of Madras for 120 and 125 mm caliber missiles worth over USD 9 million.
South African expert from King's College London, Walter Ladwig, assessed that further transfers of relatively small amounts of ammunition would be geopolitically beneficial for India.
– This allows us to show our partners in the West that are not “on the Russian side” in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, he said.
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