Ahead of Russian President’s Vladimir Putin’s India visit next month, India said on Tuesday that the negotiations to purchase S-400 missile system was almost at the final stage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is coming to India on the 5th of October to participate in the 19th India-Russia bilateral summit to be held in New Delhi.
India is considering to sign this agreement during Putin’s visit to New Delhi in October this year before the sanctions under US CAATSA becomes fully operational from November this year.
“We’ll have to see it if it’s signed before the Russian President’s visit,” said Indian Defence Minister.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman (File Photo).
However, mere signing of the contract before full operationalization of the provisions of CAATSA may not be a valid ground for the US to avoid imposing sanctions on India as it has refused to grant any ‘blanket waiver’ to any specific country when the law as amended in August this year.
India has been formally talking to Russia for the last three years to acquire a reliable ballistic missile defence system to protect its vital strategic installations against growing arsenal of Chinese and Pakistani missiles.
Although India is also developing its own ballistic missile defence system based on Prithvi (Earth in English) short range ballistic missiles but it is still several years away from full development.
S-400 Triumf missiles being launched. (Photo courtesy: Russian Ministry of Defence).
In order to meet its immediate security requirement, India has been looking to acquire state of the art S-400 Triumf missile system despite the threat of US sanctions under the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that mandates the US government to ban entities and individuals dealing with Russia, Iran and North Korea.
