Russia moved to second place in the sales of arms ranking, leaving the United Kingdom behind, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
According to the research, sales of arms and military services by the world’s largest arms-producing and military services companies totaled $398.2 billion in 2017.
According to SIPRI, the arms sales of the 10 Russian companies listed in the Top 100 increased by 8.5% in 2017, to $37.7 billion, thus the combined arms sales of Russian companies accounted for 9.5% of the Top 100 total.
Lockheed Martin remained the world’s largest arms producer in 2017, with arms sales of $44.9 billion. "With 42 companies listed in 2017, companies based in the United States continued to dominate the Top 100 in 2017," SIPRI said.
Russia’s Almaz-Antey corporation increased its arms sales by 17% in 2017, to $8.6 billion, making it to the list for the first time.
The editor-in-chief of the newspaper 'Journalistic Truth', Vladislav Shurigin, speaking to Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that several factors helped Russia to retake the second place. “First of all, it is the American threat felt by most of the current consumers of our weapons, which forces them to increase their purchases in Russia. In addition, our traditional customers are completing another wave of re-equipment, which is a cyclical growth factor for our arms exports. That's why it turns out that we sell more weapon in some years, and in other years - less, depending on programs. This year all the factors coincided, besides, Russian weapons have proved very successful in all recent local wars, particularly in Syria," he explained, adding that substantial purchases of Russian weapons have been made by India and China.
The President of the National Strategy Institute, Mikhail Remizov, in turn, pointed out that Russia's position on the market may be shaken by Western sanctions in the future. "The growth of Russian arms exports has recently been supported by large S-400 deals: agreements were signed with Turkey and India. The contracts with these countries showed that the S-400 is a system in demand in modern conditions, including because it is exclusive. At the same time, Russia's military-technical cooperation partners are laying sanctions risks in decision-making, which has affected and will further affect foreign trade relations in this area," the expert warned.
