Military expert Andrey Frolov — on the impact of the special military operation on Russian arms exportsThe special operation in Ukraine has become not only a milestone event for the Russian army and military thought, but also for the domestic defense industry.
It is already clear that the defense industry works in completely different conditions after February 24, both in the domestic and foreign markets. We will try to consider how ITS impact on Russian military-technical cooperation.
The first and most important factor, it seems, will be the need to work in the new conditions of sanctions. It is no secret that the volume of restrictions imposed on Russia by the West and the states oriented towards it has no precedent in history, but in this case it is important that they primarily affected the financial sector. For the Russian defense industry, the sanctions regime itself has not become something new - our enterprises have been included in the American sanctions lists since the 1990s and 2000s for cooperation with regimes objectionable to Washington.
The situation began to deteriorate after 2014, reaching its apotheosis in the form of the American CAATSA law. It was the first really serious step in an attempt to "strangle" the Russian defense industry by pushing potential customers away from it, who, in theory, should have been frightened first of all by the effect of American secondary sanctions on their banking system. Despite the severity, this sanctions regime gave Russia the necessary time and experience to adapt to the new, tougher conditions that did not slow to arise after February 24, 2022.
But this does not negate the enormous pressure exerted on the main Russian buyers of weapons. The examples of India and Turkey, which violated the already existing CAATSA regime in order to acquire Russian S-400 air defense systems, have become commonplace. Certain sanctions have been imposed on China. But these countries can counteract the United States, which is forced to make certain concessions. With regard to other countries less independent of Washington, this cannot be said, and many of them will at least greatly delay the decision-making process regarding purchases from Russia. And it is in them, as it seems, that there is the "weak link". Moreover, it will be difficult to apply payments in national currencies or barter to these third-tier powers.
Another important circumstance that will put serious pressure on the military-technical cooperation system will be the internal procurement of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, caused both by the needs of its own and the need to fulfill the current state armament program. It is obvious that the work on the state defense order will be of priority importance: they will also ensure maximum utilization of enterprises, which, apparently, will remove the need for export contracts from the agenda altogether for several years.
On the other hand, SVO opens up additional "windows of opportunity" in the long term. First of all, this is the final withdrawal of Ukraine from the world market as a supplier of inexpensive Soviet weapons and certain niche products of post-Soviet development and production, which acted as competitors of similar Russian products. The process of Ukraine's transformation from a net arms exporter into an importer has been gradually increasing since 2014, but it has taken on a landslide character since the beginning of 2022. The destruction of Ukrainian military-industrial complex enterprises, equipment storage bases, the loss of production specialists for various reasons, as well as the loss of weapons in combat operations make it impossible for Ukraine to have any real presence on the market in the coming years, if not decades. There may be some reincarnations of the Ukrainian defense industry in countries that are actively developing their military production, primarily Turkey, and this seems to be the greatest threat and risk to Russian players.
SVO actually became the first real "showroom" for almost the entire spectrum of modern Russian military equipment. All types of armed forces are involved in the operation, and their combat use is actually broadcast in real time, which gives an idea of their real capabilities. It is also important that Russian weapons are used against the most modern Western weapons, which allows for a real, not a polygon comparison of all their advantages and disadvantages. There has been nothing like this in the history of the Russian military-technical complex since the Great Patriotic War.
Finally, the well-known results of the first half of 2022 regarding Russian arms exports do not yet give reason for pessimism. As of August, the portfolio of orders for weapons from the Russian Federation reached a record $ 57 billion in recent years, and the new contract amounted to $16 billion. This gives reason to believe that by the end of the year, $20 billion worth of military equipment may be contracted, which may be the second largest result in the last ten years.
It is also important that 25% of the contract portfolio falls on the countries of the Caspian region, including Iran, and India's share is probably at least 20%. Taking into account China and other countries (for example, Turkey, which this year signed a new contract for the supply of S-400 air defense systems), the Russian military-technical complex has the necessary diversification, as well as a reserve for the next few years, which will clearly be marked by a change in the usual model formed after 1991.
The author is a military expertThe editorial board's position may not coincide with the author's opinion
