President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin will be visiting India in December and the visit comes at a crucial time for India. Operation Sindoor emphasized the gaps in and the requirements of the Indian armed services capabilities. The visit also comes at a time when India-US relations are at an all-time low not seen since the 1971 war. As a consequence, thinking of the United States as a supplier of weapons for India’s military modernization efforts is temporarily on hold.  Yet at the same time India faces a growing military challenge on two fronts. The Indian government needs to take advantage of the Putin visit to India to expeditiously sign deals to bolster the capabilities of the Indian military. There are three areas where India could benefit from an infusion of Russian weapons—fighter aircraft, missiles, and drones—as well as lesser requirements like submarines and anti-aircraft capabilities.

Fighters

The IAF has long-term plans to field sixty squadrons of combat aircraft and in the short term it would like to get to the currently sanctioned number of forty-two squadrons. The problem is that despite knowing for over a decade that this shortfall was going to happen, planes have not been acquired in sufficient numbers to replace the aging fleet which now stands at 29 combat squadrons. The Babus and the politicians may not understand this but with so few aircraft the IAF cannot exercise air superiority over Pakistan and definitely not over China whose air force now mainly consists of J-16s, J-20s, and J-10s, with the imminent induction of the stealthy J-35.

The government had banked on the timely production of the Tejas but that program has faltered due to delays in acquiring engines. The Chinese also point out that because the Tejas is a small aircraft it cannot carry the electronic warfare pods and large missiles that contemporary aircraft carry.  Consequently, India needs a fighter. The problem is that aircraft like the F-35 Lightning, the F-16, and the Rafale, all have fairly lengthy production backlogs and that means, depending on the aircraft, the wait time will be from about the early 2030s to, in the case of the F-35, 2040.

Lockheed has orders for 3500 F-35s and even with a production rate of 180 a year it would be around twenty years from now that India would get the first aircraft (and that is if it expeditiously signed a deal today). By then China will have large numbers of fifth and sixth generation fighters while even Pakistan will have acquired the Chinese J-35. If the IAF does not want to be seriously outgunned it should consider the purchase of the Russian Su-57.

The IAF had spent money in codeveloping the Su-57 and pulled out of the program because the Russians would not give India access to the source codes and were not interested in making the plane into a two seater like the Su-30 MKI. Things have changed as the Russians are both in need of cash and recognize that in a post-Ukraine world India is a needed friend in the international system. The Russians, therefore, have offered the source code of the aircraft’s systems thereby allowing the plane to be mated with Indian missiles—something which other foreign suppliers have been reluctant to do.

Moreover, the Russians are offering to link the Su-57s to their stealth drone, the Ohotnik (Hunter,) making it possible for the pilot to guide the drone against targets. HAL continues to have trouble developing drones, although every six months it seems as if the aircraft company is coming out with a new proposal for yet another unmanned vehicle and, rather believe empty promises, the government should secure a proven drone. The Ohotnik could be license produced in sufficient numbers to be used independently as well as in tandem with the Su-57.

The Su-57 would fill a needed gap in the IAF since it cannot acquire aircraft quickly enough from other nations and this would be a way to fill the requirement until AMCA became available. There are questions, however, whether the IAF will approve the purchase of the plane given its mixed experience with the Russians in the development of the aircraft. But, the decision is likely to be a political one much in the same way as Mrs. Gandhi waived aside the IAF’s objections and bought the Mirage 2000 which is now one of the mainstays of the air force.

Missiles

The Ukraine war has emphasized the importance of missiles as both sides have used them to wreak havoc on the other. The crucial role of missiles was also brought home in the Gaza war and Operation Sindoor for in the former the Iranians were able to use their less advanced missiles to successfully penetrate Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome and David’s Sling anti-missile systems and reduce their level of effectiveness to sixty-five percent. In Sindoor, India was to hit Pakistani airbases with its missile force.

Russian missiles are more advanced than those of Iran and India should be acquiring a lot more S-400 anti-missile systems since air and land forces around the world are seeking to acquire cheap drones and missiles to swamp a country’s air defense system and force it to use its expensive anti-missile systems to counter the incoming threat. The need for a large stockpile lies in the fact that missile redundancy will be needed to counter the attempts by a rival force to overwhelm the Indian defenses.

The other missile that India should engage in a serious discussion with the Russians about is the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. Hypersonics are the future because given the high speeds at which they travel they are almost impossible to shoot down. The Kinzhal has a range of around 2,000 kilometers and can be air launched from a large aircraft like the Su-30 At a range of 2,000 kilometers the plane can be flying deep inside Indian territory which would keep it safe from attack by a Pakistani or Chinese anti-aircraft missile thus removing some of the concerns that arose due to Operation Sindoor. With that type of range it can also be used to cover the whole of Pakistan and strike targets fairly deep in China’s hinterland.

Normally, a long range missile like Kinzhal, and its land based equivalent the Iskander, would not be transferred to another country since their range violates the regulations of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). In the case of Ukraine, however, American policy makers are suggesting that the treaty allows for exceptions and, therefore, are willing to transfer the Tomahawk cruise missile, which has a range over 1,000 kilometers, to Kyiv to launch deep-strikes into Russia. Trump has so far not agreed to the transfer but Moscow sees the proposal as being a challenge to its security and it can, therefore, be persuaded to transfer the Kinzhal to India.

Anti-Aircraft Guns

The problem with drones has been discussed above:  they are cheap to build and they can swarm expensive air defenses.  In Sindoor, the armed forces used the old ZSU-23-4 Shilka anti-aircraft system as well as the towed ZSU-23-2 to shoot down drones with ammunition rather than expensive missiles. Across the world, countries are looking for cheap alternatives to take out drones and both the Shilka and the smaller ZSU-23-2 provide that option.

India’s private arms manufacturers have made considerable profits by buying old weapons production plants in the West and using them to manufacture systems that are still useful in the modern battlefield. These include howitzers, armored personnel carriers, and artillery shells. The latter have given Indian arms manufacturers significant profits because of the need for shells in the different wars that are currently being fought around the world.

In the context of anti-aircraft weaponry the Russians have two systems that could interest India. One is the tried and tested Shilka which could easily be part of a deal where the production line is transferred to the private sector and companies like Larsen and Toubro, Bharat Forge, and the Tatas could be interested in building the gun. Another possibility is to go for the more modern Tunguska anti-aircraft system and, again, the private sector could be made a partner in the production process.

Joint Development

Perhaps the most important thing the government needs to sell to Vladimir Putin is the idea that the joint development of weapons can have mutually beneficial consequences—the Brahmos is a case in point.  Brahmos was conceived as a joint project to fulfill the requirement of the Indian and Russian armed forces but the missile has found export customers with Philippines buying the system and Indonesia reportedly expressing an interest in it.

Potential buyers see a Russian weapon with a Made in India tag and this allows them to circumvent western sanctions on the purchase of Russian weapons systems.  This is an incentive that the Russians may not pass up since more joint development or production of weapons allows them to sell more systems around the world.

The recent deal to build the Su-100 in India is also a good one since New Delhi has been contemplating the development of passenger aircraft for some time.  HAL, however, has not been able to deliver anything that could be built quickly and is of high quality.  Given the fact that the domestic aviation industry has a growing need for new aircraft, the Su-100 would fill that requirement and India can talk to the French to put their engines on the plane (which were the original engines for the aircraft) if the Russian ones are found to be lacking in performance. The plane could also be used in a military context since India will have a growing need for airborne early warning systems and the Su-100 could serve as the aircraft that carries these sensors.

The question is where should future collaboration between the two countries go? The most obvious answer is space since India has a robust space program that has ambitious plans for expansion and collaboration with the Russians would be the way to go since the West is unlikely to provide assistance or technologies. For example, while the United States has agreed to sell nuclear submarines to Australia, and Trump recently suggested that he was giving South Korea permission to build similar subs, it was also made clear that India would not benefit from such a deal. Similarly, it is unlikely that in the future much aid will be given to India’s space program by the United States. But India has ambitious plans and these will in the future include setting up a space station in outer space. The Russians have considerable experience in this area and working with them will be mutually beneficial.

The other thing India bring to the table is funds and for a Russia which has been bled financially by the Ukraine war this would provide the opportunity to develop projects in the military field. For India, putting its financial resources into the game would also permit it to better control the content and outcome of any such project and that would lead to furthering the country’s objective of becoming Atmanirbhar.

In conclusion, while all these proposals sound promising, they cannot be brought to fruition unless the political will exists to expeditiously implement them. The government has to realize that it has to quickly buy weapons to the match the pressing two-front threat and the usual dragging of feet in weapons negotiations can have unfortunate consequences.  The time has come to engage boldly with Putin.

Amit Gupta is a Senior Fellow in the National Institute for Deterrence Studies, USA.  The views in this article are personal.