INDIA is set to spend almost $6BILLION on cutting-edge S-400 air missile defence systems from Russia - despite the UK paying the heavily poverty-stricken country more than £100 million in foreign aid each year.
Defence Minister Normal Sitharaman has forwarded the deal for the purchase of five S-400 units to the finance ministry and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office for Government approval. The cost equates to £4.3 billion.
The S-400 Triumf can engage with targets at a range of up to 40km and ballistic missiles up to 60km away.
It can use at least four interceptor missile types - one S-400 division can engage up to 36 targets simultaneously.
A source at the Defence Acquisitions Council (DAC) told the Times of India: “The S-400 procurement case will now go to the finance ministry for clearance and the PM-led Cabinet Committee on Security for the final nod.
“The country’s top political leadership will have to take a call on when the actual contract can be inked.”
India has a growing battery of more than 130 Indian-built nuclear warheads, with the country expected to outstrip the UK’s 215-strong nuclear deterrent in the next decade.
As of the end of 2017, India’s nuclear budget almost exactly matched the UK’s at around £5 billion.
Yet confusingly, the country remains heavily poverty-stricken, with the UK paying more than £100 million of its £13 billion aid budget to India each year.
Last month, it was revealed that India has the world’s second largest poor population behind Nigeria.
According to figures from World Poverty Clock, 73 million Indian people or 5.3 percent of the total population still live in “extreme poverty” - classed as a person living on less than $1.90 a day.
The multi-billion pound purchase of the S-400 has also come under strong opposition from the US.
The deal, provisionally discussed in a summit between Mr Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in October 2016, has raised questions over the possible imposition of US sanctions, which aim to deter nations from buying Russian weapons.
US armed services committee chairman Mac Thornberry said in May: “The acquisition of this technology will limit, I am afraid, the degree with which the United States will feel comfortable in bringing additional technology into whatever country we are talking about.”
Mr Thornberry added that there is also concern that “any country that acquires the system will complicate the ability of interoperability” with US forces.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...missile-system-nuclear-arsenal-uk-foreign-aid
