A Mi-35M military helicopter of the Pakistani Armed Forces
The Russian weapon sales continue growing despite US sanctions and Washington’s threats to customers of the Russian weapons.
In 2018, Russia delivred $15Bln worth weapons to foreign customers and signed $20Bln worth weapon export contracts, Kommersant daily reported on April 2 citing collected open data and own sources.
According to the report, most of the weapon deliveries were made in the framework of long-term contracts with ‘traditional partners’. In particular, Russia finished a contract on delivery of 24 Su-35 jets to China. Beijing also received 3 Mi-171 and 4 Mi-17-1E and 2 Ka-32A11BC helicopters. The S-400 delivery was delated because of a recent accident with the logistic company and is now expected in 2019.
Moscow finished maintenance and modernization of 6 Mi-17-1B helicopters and 63 MiG-29 jets [to the MiG-29UPG variant] for the Indian Armed Forces. The Algerian Navy got 2 Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarines. The Egyptian military coninues to receive MiG-29M/M2 jets and Ka-52 attack helicopters. Iraq and Vietnam are receiving T-90C main battle tanks.
Laos got 4 of 10 ordered Yak-130 jets, 4 repaired Mi-17 helicopters as well as tens of T-72B1 battle tanks. Myanmar received 6 Yak-130 training aircraft. Jordan – 2 Mi-26T2 helicopters. Nigeria received 12 Mi-35M military helicopters and Guinea got 2 Pantisr-S1 short- to medium-range air defense systems.
Kommersant’s source pointed outed that through out the years attempts to ‘pressure’ customers buying Russian weapons were observed repeatedly.
