Artillery shells sold by Indian arms makers have been diverted to Ukraine, according to a Reuters analysis of commercially available customs data.
According to the sources and the customs data, munitions have been transferred to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia for more than a year. Indian arms export regulations limit the use of weaponry to the declared purchaser, who risks future sales being terminated if unauthorised transfers occur.
The foreign and defence ministries of Russia and India did not respond to questions. In January, Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a news conference that India had not sent or sold artillery shells to Ukraine.
Two Indian government and two defence industry sources told Reuters that Delhi produced only a very small amount of the ammunition being used by Ukraine, with one official estimating that it was under 1% of the total arms imported by Kyiv since the war. The news agency couldn’t determine if the munitions were resold or donated to Kyiv.
According to a Spanish and a senior Indian official, as well as a former top executive at Yantra India, a state-owned company whose munitions are being used by Ukraine. Armenia and the Czech Republic are among the countries sending Indian munitions to Ukraine.
The Indian official said that Delhi was monitoring the situation. But, along with a defence industry executive with direct knowledge of the transfers, he said India had not taken any action to throttle the supply to Europe. Like most of the 20 people interviewed by Reuters, they spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Delhi and Washington, Ukraine’s main security backer, have recently strengthened defence and diplomatic cooperation against the backdrop of a rising China, which both regard as their main rival.
India also has warm ties with Russia, its primary 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 weapons importer, also sees the lengthy 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 battling to contain a Russian offensive toward the eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk, has a dire shortage of artillery ammunition.
The White House declined to comment and the U.S. State Department referred questions on Delhi’s arms exports to the Indian government.
According to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank, India exported just over $3 billion of arms between 2018 and 2023.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said at an Aug. 30 conference that defence exports surpassed $2.5 billion in the last fiscal year and that Delhi wanted to increase that to about $6 billion by 2029.
Commercially available customs records show that in the two years before the February 2022 invasion, three major Indian ammunition makers—Yantra, Munitions India, and Kalyani Strategic Systems—exported just $2.8 million in munitions components to Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Slovenia, where defence contractors have invested heavily in supply chains for Ukraine.
Between February 2022 and July 2024, the figure had increased to $135.25 million, the data show, including completed munitions, which India began exporting to the four nations.
Arzan Tarapore, an India defence expert at Stanford University, said that Delhi’s push to expand its arms exports was a major factor in the transfer of its arms to Ukraine.
MES is Yantra’s biggest foreign client. The executive said the Rome-based company buys empty shells from India and fills them with explosives.
Several Western firms had explosive filling capabilities but lack the manufacturing capacity to mass produce artillery shells, the executive said.
Yantra said in its 2022-23 annual report that it had agreed a deal with an unnamed Italian client to set up a manufacturing line for L15A1 shells, which the former Yantra executive identified as MES.
MES and Yantra India did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Customs data indicate that Yantra shipped $35 million worth of empty 155mm L15A1 shells to MES between February 2022 and July 2024.
Customs records also show that in February 2024, U.K.-based arms company Dince Hill – whose board includes a top MES executive – exported $6.7 million in ammunition from Italy to Ukraine.
Among the exports were 155mm L15A1 shells, which the customs declaration said were manufactured by MES for Ukraine’s Defence Ministry and supplied for “promoting the defense capability and mobilization readiness of Ukraine.”
Dince Hill did not respond to an email seeking comment. Its new owner, Rome-based Effequattro Consulting, could not be reached.
In another instance, Spain’s Transport Minister Oscar Puente shared on social media in May an end user agreement signed by a Czech defence official that authorised the transfer of 120mm and 125mm ammunition shells from Munitions India to arms dealer Czech Defence Systems.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported in May 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 Munitions India had shipped 10,000 rounds of 120mm and 125mm mortar shells, worth more than $9 million, from Chennai to CDS.
Russia, which supplies more than 60% of Delhi’s arms imports, is a valued partner for India. In July, PM Modi chose Moscow for his first bilateral international trip since being elected to a third term.
At another meeting that month in Kazakhstan between top Indian diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Lavrov, the Russian minister pressed his counterpart about Indian munitions being used by Ukrainians and complained that some were made by state-owned Indian companies, according to an Indian official with direct knowledge of the encounter.
Walter Ladwig, a South Asia security expert at King’s College London, said the diversion of a relatively small amount of ammunition was geopolitically useful for Delhi.
© 2024, GDC. © GDC and www.globaldefensecorp.com. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to www.globaldefensecorp.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
