It seems that India’s long love affair with Russian combat aircraft is finally coming to an end. For nearly five decades, the MiG-21s formed the backbone of the Indian Air Force (IAF). The mantle was then passed on to the Su-30MKI.
Despite Russia’s aggressive marketing and India’s widening capability gap with China in fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, New Delhi has not yet made up its mind about Russia’s latest combat aircraft, the Su-57 Felon.
Still, when it comes to missile technology, the New Delhi-Moscow love affair is only getting stronger.
Indeed, during the four-day conflict with Pakistan in May this year, the joint Indo-Russian supersonic cruise missile, BrahMos, and the Russian air defense system, the S-400, were the two undisputed stars of the short but intense war.
BrahMos was credited for obliterating multiple Pakistani air bases, and the S-400 SAM was credited for the longest surface-to-air kill in history, downing a large Pakistani aircraft (probably an AWACS) at a distance of over 300 km.
Following the war, India fast-tracked the development of BrahMos NG (Next-Generation), and talks are underway to purchase five more S-400 battalions from Russia.
India ordered five regiments of the S-400 from Russia in 2018 for USD 5.4 billion. However, so far, India has received only three regiments.
Due to the Russia-Ukraine War, Moscow is unable to deliver the remaining two regiments on schedule. Latest reports suggest that the last two S-400 regiments could be delivered by 2027.
However, a new research paper by the UK-based think tank, Royal United Services Institute for Defense Research (RUSI), warns New Delhi against over-reliance on Russian air defense systems (particularly the S-400), despite their splendid performance during Operation Sindoor.
Though RUSI acknowledges Russia’s leadership in designing and developing world-class air defense systems and notes its impressive performance in combat situations, including in the ongoing Ukraine War, it warns that all foreign customers of the Russian AD systems, particularly India, should be cautious, as going forward, their production quality is set to decline and there are questions even on Moscow’s ability to continue their production.
“Russia produces some of the most formidable air defence systems in the world and fields them in large numbers,” the RUSI paper – ‘Disrupting Russian Air Defence Production: Reclaiming the Sky’ – said.
“These pose a threat to NATO air forces and to conventional deterrence in Europe. They also intercept most Ukrainian munitions targeting Russia’s infrastructure and industry.”
However, the research paper warns that “a comprehensive analysis of the manufacturing process of Russian air defence systems demonstrates significant vulnerabilities in their production that could be exploited to disrupt their modernisation and output.”
To disrupt Russia’s air defense system production capabilities, the paper recommends following the six steps:
(a) Prevent the modernization of Russian microelectronics production and disrupt the purchase of critical materials used in Russia’s microelectronics industry.
(b) Sanction companies involved in the supply of raw and processed materials to Russia, such as beryllium oxide ceramics, which are critical to the production of radar.
(c) Use export controls to prevent the shipment of Western-made measuring equipment and calibration tools for quality control and certification of air defence systems.
(d) Exploit software critical to the design and development of Russian air defences through cyber intrusions.
(e) Prioritise the kinetic targeting of critical nodes within air defence production.
(f) Impose sanctions to disrupt the repair and recovery of Russian air defense facilities that have been damaged by Ukraine and rely on Western-supplied machine tools.
The paper warns that, given these vulnerabilities, international customers of Russian air defense systems should reassess their resilience against attacks, including cyberattacks, technical compromise, and supply chain disruptions.
Why Should India Reassess S-400 Purchase?
According to the paper, Russian air defenses rely on a wide range of foreign-sourced microelectronics that Russia has struggled to produce domestically, thereby exposing Russia to systemic supply chain risks for critical subcomponents.
For instance, Russia’s S-400 uses the Elbrus-90 microprocessor for data processing and target tracking. However, since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, both the developer and the system’s manufacturer have faced, and continue to face, production-related obstacles.
According to the Moscow Centre of SPARC Technologies (MCST), the developer of the Elbrus-90 microprocessor, these microprocessors were manufactured in Taiwan’s TSMC until domestic production capacity is established.
Since then, the paper claims, there have been no open sources confirming that MCST has successfully moved production to Russia.
The paper further claims that, to produce these Elbrus-90 microprocessors and to bypass Western sanctions, MCST had entered into a US$2-billion contract with Indian partners. Furthermore, MCST was trying to persuade Foxconn to establish a production facility for Elbrus in India.
However, it was unclear whether these advances were met with a favourable response.
The paper concludes that Russia’s microelectronics industry is underperforming, still dependent on foreign suppliers for more complex chips, and that disruption to its operations would have a profound impact on the production of some of the most critical components for S-400 AD systems.
The paper also notes Russia’s dependence on the US company Rogers Corporation for procuring printed circuit board (PCB) laminates, critical for advanced radar manufacturing.
“Since 1 January 2024, Russian companies have imported $1.1 million of Rogers PCBs, mostly via China but also via Turkey, India, and Lithuania, according to trade records.”
Disrupting the supply of these products to Russia, the paper notes, could set back the performance of some of its most advanced radars and, by extension, air and missile defense systems, including the S-400, more generally.
Similarly, Russia depends on the supply of raw materials, such as beryllium oxide ceramics, which are critical for the manufacture of high-power radiofrequency and microwave electronics.
“Russia has no operating plants for the production of beryllium oxide ceramics and has instead historically relied on a factory based in Ust-Kamenogorsk, eastern Kazakhstan, now known as Kaz Ceramics,” it said.
Kaz Ceramics itself imports equipment critical to its production operations from Ukraine, the EU, and China.
“It has received diamond-cutting tools worth $20,676 from PJSC Poltavsky Diamond Instruments (Ukraine), pressing tools worth a total of $21,620 from Intervit Co., Ltd (Ukraine), as well as industrial electric furnaces SNOL from UAB Snoltherm (Lithuania) worth a total of $92,473.”
Targeted economic sanctions could disrupt the supply of beryllium oxide ceramics to Russia.
“The disruption of trade flows through the application and enforcement of sanctions operations would have a significant impact on radar production for the S-400,” the research paper warns.
Besides, Russia also relies on foreign-made software for modelling and simulating components used in radars.
For India, an additional concern is that, as Western countries tighten targeted sanctions on Russia’s military-industrial complex, Moscow will inevitably shift its supply chains to China.
Given that China is one of India’s primary adversaries, this gives Beijing leverage over the supply of critical defense equipment to New Delhi, which could be exploited in a conflict.
Elaborating on this danger, Jack Watling, a specialist in land warfare at RUSI, told Indian newspaper The Hindu in an exclusive interview, “If we look at the Russian defense industry as a whole, at the moment, about 70% of machine tooling is Chinese… Then, if we look at the remainder of the machine tools, they are largely European, American, or Japanese.
“Many of them were either acquired before the full-scale invasion or they have been procured through illicit finance. The ones that were acquired before 2022, many of them are reaching the end of their warranty period by 2027, and so in order to maintain them, the Russians have to use subterfuge to acquire more replacement parts, and so on.”
He cited the example of PBC laminates, which are critical to the radars used in S-400 systems.
“The microelectronics that are in S-400 use PBC laminates, which are manufactured by an American company called Rogers. The Russians have tested Chinese alternatives in case they can’t get hold of this US materiel, in which case there is a reduction in performance.”
“Now for Europe, the view is, ‘Okay, so if we cut that off, there would be a small reduction in performance of S-400, but they would still produce it.’ But for India, if the assumption is that India will fight China, and that’s when it needs these systems, then, given that much industrial exposure on the Russian side to China as a critical enabler of all of these production processes, how confident can India be that the Chinese will allow the Russians to resupply them? That is a strategic risk with this system.”
He also underlined that in some cases where Russians are using Chinese substitutes, there is a demonstrable decline in performance, suggesting that the S-400 regiments Russia supplies to India in the future might be less capable.
“We have the laboratory tests that the Russians have performed. And what they demonstrate is very clear: in some cases, there is no Chinese substitute, so there isn’t an alternative component they can source…. And in some cases, the system will still function, but it will perform less capably.”
The challenge India then faces is how to firewall its Russian defense supplies from the Chinese components. Otherwise, the Chinese can compromise Indian defense capability even before the conflict has started.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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