Ukraine Invasion: War In Ukraine Impacting Russian Weapon Exports

Although the global arms trade has been relatively steady in recent years, at least until the beginning of the Ukraine war, demand from the Middle East has continued to grow, reaching almost 33% of the global market.

The US is the leading supplier, with as much as 47% of its entire arms exports between 2016-2020 going to the Middle East – an increase of 28 percent from the previous five years. Saudi Arabia has been the top buyer, with 11 percent of global imports.

Will Russia’s exports decline substantially?

Due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, many observers believe that Russia’s regular customers may experience supply shortages. This is because Russia is rapidly depleting its own military supplies and domestic manufacturers are under intense pressure to equip their own armed forces.

Russian customers will have a very difficult time conducting any kind of business operations, notably with the Russian defense industry, in addition to logistical challenges and supply constraints.

Moreover, the introduction of heavy controls aimed to block Russia from acquiring semiconductors, aircraft components, and other advanced technologies crucial for Russia’s defence industry may hamper its production efforts and consequently affect the potential for further exports.

The conflict in Ukraine has also raised questions about the quality of Russian military equipment, especially regarding tanks and armoured personnel carriers.

“The war in Ukraine is damaging the reputation of Russian weapons,” Bruce Riedel, senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project, told The New Arab.

In a similar vein, Frank Slijper, an arms trade expert from PAX, a peace organisation based in the Netherlands, observes that “whereas many thought that Russia was on its way to becoming a stronger rival of the US industry, the past half-year has clearly proven that this was wrong”.

The war in Ukraine will “clearly affect its ability to materialise existing arms deals, and together with the pre-existing threat of US sanctions against any country buying Russian weapons (CAATSA: Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act), Russia’s arms industry is clearly suffering badly, and it remains to be seen how many years it may take them to recover,” he told The New Arab.