No surprises there. According to the latest numbers released by SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) on Monday, Ukraine increased its weapons imports about 100 times in 2020-24, compared to the earlier five-year period, to become the world’s largest buyer of major arms.
Buying weapons from at least 35 countries, Ukraine received 8.8 per cent of global arms imports in 2020-24 with most of the major arms coming from the US (45 per cent), followed by Germany (12 per cent) and Poland (11 per cent).
SIPRI is a leading Stockholm-based think-tank that closely tracks the global trade in weapons.
In the same period, European weapons imports grew by 155 per cent reflecting a European response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid inconsistency of US foreign policy.
Visited the HAL Aircraft Division in Bengaluru today. The first rear fuselage for Light Combat Aircraft Mk1A was handed over to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). This is a testimony to India’s progress towards Aatmanirbharta in defence and the Government’s commitment towards… pic.twitter.com/bOrxtoZfqF
— Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) March 9, 2025
On February 24, 2022, in a sudden move that took the world by surprise and triggered global panic, Russian soldiers moved into Ukraine in what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a ‘special forces operation’.
Four years later, the scope of the conflict has expanded manifold as new alignments have shaped up unleashing tectonic forces that seriously threaten to alter the existing global order.
On the other hand, India couldn’t shake off its dependence on foreign weapons as it was second only to Ukraine in the same five-year period.
Most of the weapons (36 per cent) came from Russia although it was much reduced than what it was in 2015-19 (55 per cent) and 2010-14 (72 per cent).
Purportedly threatened by a two-front war scenario, Indian imports however fell by more than 9 per cent in 2020-24 from 2015-19.
Amid a global churn, the US increased its global share in the sale of weapons to 43 per cent, marking a 21 per cent increase between 2015-19 and 2020-24. In the same period, the US had sold weapons to 107 states.
A noteworthy feature of the US arms exports is that for the first time in two decades, the largest share of US arms exports in 2020-24 went to Europe (35 per cent) and not the Middle East (33 per cent).
