MOSCOW: Russia has begun supplying India with S-400 air defence missile systems, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday citing Dmitry Shugayev, the head of the Russian military cooperation agency.

The supplies put India at risk of sanctions from the United States under a 2017 US law aimed at deterring countries from buying Russian military hardware.

“The first supplies have already been started,” Interfax cited Shugayev as saying on Sunday at an aerospace trade show in Dubai.

He said that the first unit of an S-400 system will arrive in India by the end of this year.

The $5.5 billion deal for five long-range surface-to-air missile systems, which India says it needs to counter a threat from China, was signed in 2018.

India faces a range of financial sanctions from the United States under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which names Russia as an adversary alongside North Korea and Iran for its actions against Ukraine, interference in the US 2016 elections and help to Syria.

New Delhi said it has a strategic partnership with both the United States and Russia while Washington told India it was unlikely to get a waiver from CAATSA.

Last year the US imposed sanctions citing CAATSA on Nato ally Turkey for acquiring S-400 missiles from Russia. The sanctions targeted the main Turkish defence procurement and development body.

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2021