According to customs clearance data, Russia is suspected of buying back military supplies that were previously sent to Myanmar and India. We are talking about spare parts for tanks and missiles.
The Nikkei has analyzed and found records of Russia buying back parts for tanks and missiles exported to Myanmar and India.
Russia is re-importing components to upgrade old weapons intended for use in Ukraine, relying on help from countries with which it has long-standing military ties, as the US, European countries and Japan banned the export of potential military goods to Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to Nikkei, Uralvagonzavod, which manufactures tanks for the Russian military, imported $24 million worth of military products from the Myanmar army on December 9, 2022. These components were registered as manufactured by Uralvagonzavod.
Customs records of reimported goods show that the company purchased 6,775 visors and 200 cameras. Most likely, these are optical devices for measuring the distance to targets and aiming.
A Russian analyst at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, reported that Russia has a lot of old T-72 tanks in storage in need of modernization, but optics are a big problem for the Russian military-industrial complex.
Previously, in the production of this equipment, the Russian Federation relied on Western technologies, but the imposed sanctions made everything quite complicated.
The publication reports that the Russian Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering, which manufactures missiles, has purchased a total of six components for a night vision sight for ground-to-air missiles worth $150,000 from the Indian Ministry of Defense.
It is noted that they bought their own equipment, manufactured by the Russian company KBM, which exported the same type of parts to India in February 2013.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russia is the world’s third-largest arms exporter, and the largest customer is India, which accounts for 35% of Russia’s foreign arms shipments over the past decade.
Source: Delo.ua