Five Battalions in Six Years? India to Receive All Five S-400 Battalions By 2025 - Rostec CEO

Following the signing of a long anticipated $5.43 billion contract in October 2019 for the delivery of 5 battalions of S-400 long range surface to air missile systems to the Indian armed forces, and subsequent requests from Delhi to accelerate the delivery schedule and allow India to manufacture some missile components under licence, the CEO of Russian state arms exporter Rostec Sergey Chemezov has elaborated on the schedule for delivery. Deliveries are reportedly set to begin in 2020, and will be completed by the end of 2025. This means the Indian armed forces will on average receive a full battalion almost every year, and will be the world’s largest foreign operator of the S-400 by around the year 2022. With payments for the system already transferred and manufacturing having begun, Delhi appears to have avoided pressure from the Western Bloc to cancel the payment in favour of a Western manufactured system - although whether the United States will respond with economic sanctions remains to be seen.