India is going to sign on the dotted line for procuring S-400 during President Putin’s visit to India.
“The key feature of this visit will be the signing of the agreement to deliver S-400 air defence systems,” Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said and added that the value of the contract will be more than $5 billion.
While New Deli-Moscow have been negotiating sales of S-400 for months, US has been trying to block it for as much time. Last month by signing Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), US threatened India with sanctions. China has already been sanction under CAATSA for its recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile.
While India has asked Washington for a waiver, it might not be forthcoming anytime soon. We believe India will play along with US on the Iran oil import restrictions to get the said favours.
The S-400 was described by The Economist in 2017 as “one of the best air-defence systems currently made”. The platform uses four missiles to fill its performance envelope: the very-long-range 40N6 (400 km), the long-range 48N6 (250 km), the medium-range 9M96E2 (120 km) and the short-range 9M96E (40 km) making it an integrated platform for security. The System has been successfully deployed in Syrian civil war and has had a good run in denying air superiority to the NATO aircrafts. S 400 is presently in service with Russian and Chinese forces.
