India transfers ammunition to Ukraine, despite Moscow’s anger - Reuters
European buyers redirect artillery shells sold by Indian arms manufacturers to Ukraine. Instead, New Delhi has not intervened to stop the trade despite protests from Moscow.
This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to Reuters.
As noted, the transfer of ammunition to support Ukraine's defense against Russia has been taking place for over a year.
According to sources, among the European countries sending Indian shells are Italy and the Czech Republic, which is leading the initiative to supply Kyiv with artillery shells from outside the European Union.
The agency writes that the Kremlin has raised this issue at least twice, including during a July meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Indian counterpart.
Production of projectiles in India and transfer to the EU
At the same time, two sources said, India produces a small amount of ammunition used by Ukraine, with one official estimating less than 1% of the total weapons imported by Kyiv since the war.
Commercially available customs records show that in the two years to February 2022, three major Indian ammunition manufacturers - Yantra, Munitions India, and Kalyani Strategic Systems - exported $2.8 million worth of ammunition components to Italy and the Czech Republic, as well as Spain and Slovenia, where defense contractors have invested heavily in supply chains for Ukraine.
An Indian government official said Delhi was monitoring the situation. But along with a defense industry executive with direct knowledge of the supply, he said India had taken no action to limit supplies to Europe.
Reaction of the Russian Federation
Russia, which supplies more than 60% of Delhi's arms imports, is a valuable partner for India. In July, Modi chose Moscow for his first bilateral international trip since being elected to a third term.
In another meeting that same month in Kazakhstan between senior Indian diplomat Subramaniam Jaishankar and Lavrov, the Russian minister pressed his counterpart about Indian ammunition used by Ukrainians and complained that some of it was produced by state-owned Indian companies.
Walter Ludvig, a South Asia security expert at King's College London, said the diversion of small ammunition was geopolitically beneficial for Delhi.
"This allows India to show its partners in the West that it is not "on Russia's side" in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict," he said, adding that Moscow has little leverage over Delhi's decisions.
Czech initiative to purchase ammunition for Ukraine
At the Munich Security Conference in February, Czech President Petr Pavel said that his country had found hundreds of thousands of projectiles for Ukraine, but the project needed funding. He called on the Allies to help raise money for the purchase of weapons. A number of countries responded and contributed to the initiative of the Czech Republic regarding the purchase of projectiles for the Armed Forces. In total, almost 20 countries joined the idea of Prague.
It was previously reported that the Czech Republic signed a contract for the first 180,000 artillery ammunition for Ukraine and is working on obtaining another 300,000 units.
The partner countries plan to send half a million ammunition to Ukraine by the end of 2024 within the framework of the Czech initiative.
