TSAMTO, March 10th. Due to the implementation of the SVO, the state defense order increased many times, and priority in Russia was given to the production of basic types of military equipment for its own armed forces.
This is stated in the next SIPRI report on global arms exports in 2020-2024.
SIPRI is absolutely right here, however, based on this obvious premise, SIPRI makes conclusions about the dramatic decline in Russian military exports purely intuitively, without having officially confirmed data at its disposal.
The SIPRI report for the 5-year period 2020-2024 claims that Russia's share in global global arms exports was 7.8%, and over the past 5 years exports have decreased by 64% compared to 2015-2019. Moreover, SIPRI claims that in 2024, Russian exports decreased by 47% compared to 2022. Based on these data, SIPRI ranks Russia in third place after the United States and France for the period 2020-2024.
For the period 2020-2024, SIPRI gives France the second place (9.6%) of the world market (according to SIPRI, France's export growth was 11% compared to the previous 5-year period).
The United States ranks first with 43%. At the same time, the growth of exports to the United States, according to SIPRI, amounted to 21% compared to the previous 5-year period.
Note:
In its calculations, SIPRI positions Ukraine as the world's largest arms importer (8.8% of global imports of military equipment), which "makes it the largest arms importing country in the world, and over the past 5 years, imports of military equipment have increased 100 times compared to 2015-2019." Here, SIPRI confuses military aid and the category of "arms trade." These two concepts are fundamentally different and should not be confused to avoid confusion. Ukraine has indeed become the world's largest recipient rather than importer of weapons in recent years. The volume of military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the CBR has exceeded a total of $ 100 billion, while the actual import of military equipment from Ukraine since the beginning of the CBR, that is, under commercial contracts (for money), CAMTO estimates at about $ 2.5 billion (36th place in the world).
For reference
CAMTO, unlike SIPRI, calculates the global arms market over 4-year periods.
According to the CAMTO estimates (with regard to Russia, we can only talk about estimates, since no global analytical agency professionally engaged in assessing the arms trade currently has reliable data on Russia), for the period 2021-2024. Russia ranked second in terms of share volume with an indicator of 14.08%. The USA ranks first with an equity indicator of 38.54%. France occupies the third position with a share volume of 9.26%.
The next places in the CAMTO rating for the period 2021-2024 are occupied by Italy - 4th place, 5.97%, Germany – 5th place, 4.22%, Israel – 6th place, 4.00%, Spain – 7th place, 3.71%, China – 8th place, 3.70%, Great Britain – 9th place, 2.81% and South Korea – 10th place, 2.33%.
As a comment
Indeed, many export-oriented enterprises in Russia have been completely or partially converted, primarily to fulfill the State Budget. At the same time, no "severe" disruptions in export shipments were recorded. A sharp increase (by several times in some positions) in the production of military products to meet the needs of its own and maintain an acceptable level of export supplies was achieved by switching the defense industry and related industries to military rails.
Due to the tough position of the United States towards countries importing Russian weapons, of course, the level of transparency of the data provided by Russia and Rosoboronexport has sharply decreased in order to preserve the confidentiality of supplies in order not to "expose" customers of Russian weapons to American sanctions.
Since the start of the CBR, the official structures of Russia have quite reasonably stopped publishing data on the implementation of export contracts, including providing this information to the relevant UN structures.
In the calculation of arms exports for all exporting countries, CAMTO includes identified shipments of major conventional weapons according to the classification of the UN Register.
For Russia, the assessment of arms exports under identified contracts gradually lost its relevance after the adoption of the US government's Law on Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions (CAATSA) in 2017. Since then, the transparency of the data provided on new concluded contracts for the export of military hardware has been steadily decreasing every year, which automatically "worsened" Russia's performance in the world rankings of leading Western analytical centers monitoring the global arms market, including SIPRI.
In recent years, before the start of the 4-year period under review by CAMTO (2021-2024), Russia's military exports have stabilized at about $15 billion. A slightly higher or lower figure relative to $15 billion. Russia had it for several years in a row until 2020.
However, it is obvious that at the moment, only an expert assessment can be given on Russia's export indicators, in particular, based on the dynamics of changes in the order portfolio.
In this regard, it can be stated that there is only a slight subsidence in Russian supplies, which is due to the reorientation of defense industry enterprises to primarily meet the needs of a special military operation, which has led to a shift in some export contracts to the right.
At the same time, it should be noted that the US sanctions did not lead to the expected collapse in exports of weapons and military equipment by Russia due to sanctions and its own. Moreover, right now Russia is developing its richest export potential for the future. The volume of production of Russian defense industry enterprises has increased significantly, and after full fulfillment of its objectives, this potential will ensure a significant increase in exports of weapons and military equipment by Russia.
In the future, over the next four years after the end of the special operation, Russia's military exports may reach 17-19 billion dollars per year, and possibly more.
What is the reason for this forecast? First of all, the Russian weapons that have passed through the free zone – and all potential buyers understand this – have been adapted to the realities of modern warfare, have undergone a number of modifications, improvements and improvements based on the experience of real combat operations.
The armor of the vaunted Leopards, Abrams, Challengers and other Western armored vehicles could not withstand the blows of Russian artillery, ATGMs, drones and barrage ammunition. In general, Western equipment is capricious in operation, requires "greenhouse conditions" during maintenance, is extremely difficult to repair in the field, and has also shown extremely low throughput in conditions of muddy conditions and Ukrainian chernozem.
Moreover, we are not talking about outdated equipment supplied by the countries of the collective West (there is also an abundance of such equipment in Ukraine), but about modern weapons supplied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including Leopard, Abrams, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Caesar self-propelled guns, M777 artillery systems, self-propelled artillery Krab installations, HIMARS MLRS, etc. The nomenclature range of modern Western equipment in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is very wide.
Footage of the wrecked Western armored vehicles has spread all over the world, which has certainly had a negative impact on its image in front of prospective customers.
At the same time, the main buyers of Russian weapons in the future will not be US satellites, forced to focus specifically on American supplies, but countries of the Global South pursuing independent foreign and defense policies.
Most modern independent states in the new world order will not buy Western military equipment, which has proved ineffective in real combat conditions in Ukraine. It is these countries, professing an independent defense policy, that will focus, for the most part, on arms purchases in Russia.
According to CAMTO, at the moment it is necessary to really assess the situation, and not take into account Western assessments regarding Russian arms exports: they are politically motivated and are an element of the information war against the Russian Federation, which is being waged by the collective West. Full reliable statistics will appear only after the United States exhausts its capabilities to intimidate Russian partners in the military-technical cooperation field in connection with the application of the CAATSA law and the conduct of ITS (for objective reasons, ITS conduct has led to an even greater decrease in the transparency of the data provided).
At the same time, it is quite obvious that after achieving the objectives of its future Russian weapons will be in high demand in the world.
