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| Russia's Arms Export Industry Is Collapsing |
| 2023-03-14 |
| [Newsweek] Russia's arms export industry—historically the second most lucrative in the world after the United States—appears to be collapsing under the weight of technological shifts, international political isolation, and its disastrous war in Ukraine, according to new figures released by the world's leading weapons industry watchdog. Data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday show that Russia's military exports fell by 31 percent over the past five years when compared with the five years previous, threatening Moscow's position as the world's second most influential weapons dealer. Russia's share of global arms exports fell from 22 to 16 percent between 2013-2017 and 2018-2022, leaving it far behind the U.S. which accounts for 40 percent of military exports, and only slightly ahead of France, which was the source of 11 percent of arms exports over the past five years. SIPRI's latest data confirms Newsweek reporting from last year indicating a bleak trajectory bleak for Russian military exporters. "It's really substantial, but it's not really surprising," Siemon Wezeman, a senior SIPRI researcher, told Newsweek. "And it's not just because of what's happening in Ukraine in 2022; it's something that you could see coming." The West has been working to isolate Russia since its invasion and annexation of Crimea—and its fomentation of unrest in Ukraine's Donbas region—since 2014. The effort has been supercharged since Russian troops again rolled into Ukrainian territory in February 2022. Led by Washington, D.C., Moscow's adversaries are chipping away at the Kremlin's customer base. Meanwhile, the staggeringly high rates of Russian casualties and equipment losses in Ukraine are putting defense producers under pressure, as are the less-than-stellar performances of key Russian weapons platforms that appear unable to counter the most advanced NATO arms used by Ukrainian troops. Denis Manturov, Russia's deputy prime minister of industry and trade, told Interfax last month that a "significant" portion of weapons being produced in the country are being directed to Ukrainian battlefields. "Their provision is our absolute priority, but even in these conditions we continue to work with our partners from friendly countries and fulfill our obligations," he said. "There are different issues that Russia has to struggle with," Wezeman said. "One, of course, is the pressure from the U.S. and others—already ongoing since 2014—on potential customers and existing customers of Russia, to stop and not to buy Russian, and at the same time offering them alternative technology and alternative weapons. "They did it very strongly with India, but they also do it with others. They've done it with Indonesia, and that led Indonesia to cancel an order of Russian combat aircraft. They've done it with Egypt, where it's not said so loud, but Egypt had an order for combat aircraft from Russia and that has gone. It's pretty obvious, I would say, that the U.S. pressured them." The problem pre-dated the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, though has been exacerbated by President Vladimir Putin's revanchist gambit. "They would still have those issues," Wezeman said. "The invasion, of course, adds to that because it's even more pressure from the U.S. and other states: 'Don't buy from Russia. You're either with us or you're against us. If you buy from Russia, you look like you're against us. And if you're with us, maybe we are willing to supply all kinds of wonderful technology.'" "Maybe two years ago that would have been a bit iffy, but nowadays they are willing to do it," he added. |
| Posted by:Fleter Crasing2148 |