By Krishn Kaushik
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Artillery shells sold by Indian arms makers have been diverted by European customers to Ukraine and New Delhi has not intervened to stop the trade despite protests from Moscow, according to 11 government and defence industry officials from India and Europe and a Reuters analysis of commercially available customs data.
According to sources and customs data, the transfer of ammunition to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia has been going on for more than a year. Indian arms export rules limit the use of the weapons to the declared buyer, who risks having future sales cancelled if unauthorized transfers take place.
The Kremlin has raised the issue on at least two occasions, including a meeting in July between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Indian counterpart, three Indian officials said.
Reuters is reporting details of the ammunition transfers for the first time.
Following the publication of this report, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs called it “speculative and misleading”.
“This implies violations by India where none exist and is therefore inaccurate and malicious,” ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said on Thursday.
“India has been carrying out its defence exports taking into account its international non-proliferation obligations and based on a sound legal and regulatory framework, which includes a holistic assessment of relevant criteria, including end-user obligations and certifications,” Jaiswal added.
Russia’s foreign and defence ministries and India’s defence ministry did not respond to questions. In January, Jaiswal told a news conference that India had not sent or sold artillery shells to Ukraine.
Two Indian government sources and two in the defence industry told Reuters that Delhi produced only a very small amount of the ammunition used by Ukraine, with one official estimating it was less than 1% of the total arms imported by kyiv since the war. The news agency was unable to determine whether the ammunition was resold or donated to kyiv by European customers.
Among the European countries sending Indian munitions to Ukraine are Italy and the Czech Republic, which is leading an initiative to supply kyiv with artillery shells from outside the European Union, according to a Spanish official and a senior Indian official, as well as a former senior executive of Yantra India, a state-owned company whose munitions are being used by Ukraine.
The Indian official said Delhi was closely monitoring the situation but, along with a defence industry executive with direct knowledge of the transfers, said India had not taken any steps to restrict supplies to Europe. Like most of the 20 people interviewed by Reuters, they spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The defense ministries of Ukraine, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic did not respond to requests for comment.
Delhi and Washington, Ukraine’s main security ally, have recently strengthened their diplomatic and defence cooperation amid the rise of China, which both countries see as their main rival.
India also maintains close ties with Russia, its main arms supplier for decades, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused to join the Western-led sanctions regime against Moscow.
But Delhi, long the world’s largest arms importer, also sees the protracted war in Europe as an opportunity to develop its nascent arms export sector, according to six Indian sources familiar with official thinking.
Ukraine, which is struggling to contain a Russian offensive toward the eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, has a severe shortage of artillery ammunition.
The White House declined to comment and the US State Department referred questions about Delhi’s arms exports to the Indian government.
India exported arms worth just over $3 billion between 2018 and 2023, according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told a conference on August 30 that defence exports exceeded $2.5 billion in the last fiscal year and Delhi wanted to increase that figure to about $6 billion by 2029.
Commercially available customs records show that in the two years prior to the February 2022 invasion, three major Indian munitions manufacturers — Yantra, Munitions India and Kalyani Strategic Systems — exported just $2.8 million worth of munitions components to Italy and the Czech Republic, as well as Spain and Slovenia, where defense contractors have invested heavily in supply chains for Ukraine.
Between February 2022 and July 2024, the figure had risen to $135.25 million, the data shows, including finished ammunition, which India has started exporting to the four nations.
Arzan Tarapore, an Indian defense expert at Stanford University, said Delhi’s push to expand its arms exports was a major factor in the transfer of its weapons to Ukraine.
“Probably due to the recent sudden expansion, there have been some cases of violations by end users.”
DISCREET DELIVERY
Unlisted Italian defence contractor Meccanica per l’Elettronica e Servomeccanismi (MES) was among the companies that shipped Indian-made shells to Ukraine, the former senior Yantra official said.
MES is Yantra’s largest foreign client. The executive said the Rome-based company buys empty shell casings from India and fills them with explosives.
Several Western companies had explosives-filling capabilities but lacked the manufacturing capacity to mass-produce artillery shells, the executive said.
Yantra said in its 2022-23 annual report that it had reached an agreement with an unnamed Italian customer to set up a manufacturing line for L15A1 casings, which the former Yantra executive identified as MES.
MES and Yantra India did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Customs data indicates that Yantra shipped empty 155mm L15A1 shells worth $35 million to the MES between February 2022 and July 2024.
Customs records also show that in February 2024, UK-based arms company Dince Hill (whose board includes a senior MES executive) exported $6.7 million worth of ammunition from Italy to Ukraine.
Among the exports were 155mm L15A1 shells, which according to the customs declaration were manufactured by the MES for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and supplied to “promote Ukraine’s defense capability and mobilization readiness.”
Dince Hill did not respond to an email seeking comment. Its new owner, Rome-based Effequattro Consulting, could not be reached for comment.
In another case, Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente shared on social media in May an end-user agreement signed by a Czech defence official authorising the transfer of 120mm and 125mm ammunition from Munitions India to arms distributor Czech Defence Systems.
Pro-Palestinian activists had claimed that the Borkum, a ship carrying Indian-made weapons that had called at a Spanish port, was transporting the weapons to Israel.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported in May that the final destination was actually Ukraine. A Spanish official and another source familiar with the matter confirmed to Reuters that kyiv was the end user. Munitions India and CDS did not respond to questions.
Customs records dated March 27 show that Munitions India had shipped 10,000 rounds of 120mm and 125mm mortar shells, worth over $9 million, from Chennai to CDS.
FRIENDLY FIRE
Russia, which supplies more than 60% of Delhi’s arms imports, is a valuable partner for India. In July, Modi chose Moscow for his first bilateral international trip since being elected for a third term.
In another meeting that month in Kazakhstan between top Indian diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Lavrov, the Russian minister pressed his counterpart on Indian munitions used by the Ukrainians and complained that some were manufactured by Indian state-owned companies, according to an Indian official with direct knowledge of the meeting.
The official did not share Jaishankar’s response.
Walter Ladwig, a South Asian security expert at King’s College London, said the diversion of a relatively small amount of munitions was geopolitically useful for Delhi.
“This allows India to show its partners in the West that it is not ‘on Russia’s side’ in the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” he said, adding that Moscow had little influence over Delhi’s decisions.