Indian army has deployed its first squadron of the newly-acquired S400 Triumf in the Punjab sector to counter any potential missile strike from China or/and Pakistan, The Indian Express reported. The highly advanced surface-to-air missile system has the ability to restrict hostile Chinese and Pakistani air-borne operations within their own borders.
China had reportedly deployed its own S-400 in the eastern Ladakh sector along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) during its border standoff with India in 2020. The S-400 is a mobile surface-to-air missile as well as an anti-ballistic missile system developed by Russia in 1993 as an upgrade to its previous S-300 missile system and was approved for service in the Russian armed forces in 2007. The S-400 has the capability to neutralise any aerodynamic target within 400 km range, be it cruise missiles or aircrafts, thereby providing a secure defence bubble to military bases and crucial national assets.
On the side-lines of the 2016 BRICS summit, India and Russia had signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) for the supply of five squadrons of S-400 missile systems. The deal was formally signed in 2018 and was worth around ₹ 40000 crores. The delivery of the systems commenced by the end of 2020. In December 2021, India announced that it had inducted the first squadron of S-400.
Ever since the agreement was signed, the deal has been marred by threats of sanctions under the US’s Countering American Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAASTA) which has provision to forbid any defence deal with Russia, Iran or North Korea. The United States has already sanctioned Turkey in 2020 for buying S-400 from Russia. As per a report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2014-2018, India imported 58 percent of key defence components and weapons from Russia thereby making it a crucial partner to augment its defence security. “We see attempts by the United States to undermine such cooperation and impose the purchase of its own weapons on India and follow US conceptions of how the region must develop,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with respect to India’s strategic autonomy in December 2021.
Apart from India, S-400 systems have also been deployed by Russia, China, Belarus and Turkey. Saudi Arabia had shown interest in the missile system back in 2009 but it had to abandon it under pressure from the United States which signed a $15 billion THAAD deal with the Oil Kingdom.
