One of the UK's leading defence and security think tanks, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), released a research paper recently, in which it highlighted the vulnerabilities in Russia's manufacturing of key air defence systems like Pantsir, S-400, and S-500.
Amid speculations and a few media reports that India may be considering the procurement of S-500 air defence systems from Russia, Jack Watling, a specialist in land warfare at RUSI, observed that India needs to reassess the resilience of the weapon systems of Russia.
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According to him, even as Russia may not be prepared to offer S-500s to India, New Delhi also needs to be aware of the issues with the defence system.
"...for example, the critical radars in S-500 all rely on beryllium oxide ceramics, which are produced by one company called Kaz Ceramics, based in Kazakhstan. If anything happens to that factory, then Russia’s ability to produce new radar for the system will be critically compromised," The Hindu quoted Watling as saying.
"Disruption of the supply of testing equipment through the sanctioning and enforcement against suppliers would have an impact on the ongoing improvement of Russia’s air defence systems," the research paper by RUSI stated. It further said the the dependence on foreign-made software by Russian military–industrial enterprises has long been recognised as a cyber vulnerability by the Russian state, which has been funding projects for the development of domestic analogues.
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Watling pointed out that such a disruption would mean that in case of India deciding to procure S-500 and relying on it for air defence, the country's ballistic missile defence capability would become quite vulnerable.
The expert, however, noted that this is not an argument for why India needs to stop arms purchases from Russia, as New Delhi has enough people to use and maintain the Russian equipment.
He further observed that using S-400 air defence systems against cheaper drones may not be a good idea, as this would mean India is using a very expensive, limited missile to shoot down a very cheap target. This shows why a layered air-defence system is needed, with different weapons for different threats, he said.
According to him, the S-400 is truly valuable for certain tasks, such as stopping tactical ballistic missiles or high-altitude aircraft, but if India limits the S-400 to these roles and uses other systems for simpler targets, it will use far fewer missiles and reduce its vulnerability.
