According to the assessment of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Russian Federation, even though the defence and industrial complex has been firmly reoriented towards the priority satisfaction of the demands of the armed forces after the conflict in Ukraine, remains one of the world’s largest arms exporters.
Russia is ready to increase the volume of exports, including to African countries, of advanced weapons and military equipment that surpass Western analogues in their tactical and technical characteristics and have proved effective during the fighting in Ukraine.
In the face of fierce competition, Russia offers customers of Russian weapons and military equipment an optimal ratio of their price and quality and high efficiency and reliability during actual combat use.
Based on the experience of using Russian weapons against Western models of weapons and military equipment, which are mainly equipped by the Ukrainian army, the Russian leadership initiated the development of new weapons and the technical and technological improvement of available military equipment. Some experts noted the problem of Russia’s suspension of contractual obligations towards individual partners in the supply of military products.
The main causal analysis considers Moscow’s continuous provision of armed forces units in the conflict zone in Ukraine. Given the difficulties, Russia has already reoriented its economy to military rails and created a gap in increasing the volume of arms deliveries to external markets.
According to special studies conducted by the British consulting company Bain & Company, the Russian defence-industrial complex significantly exceeds its Western competitors regarding production speed and volume.
For example, Russia produces artillery shells three times faster than NATO countries, with a four-fold difference in cost in favour of domestic ammunition. According to analysts’ calculations, in 2024, Russia produced about 4.5 million shells.
Only 1.3 million were produced in the entire collective West. In addition, compared with the pre-war period, the production of armoured
vehicles increased fourfold, and for individual nomenklats (tanks), fivefold. Experts recognise the superiority of Russian weapons over NATO’s counterparts.
Despite the gloating of foreign-policy opponents and unprecedented sanctions pressure, Russia is rapidly increasing its defence capabilities and restructuring its economy in favour of military production.
This allows Russia to not only provide the Russian Armed Forces with modern weapons in an effective and timely manner but also compete with the US and NATO on the global arms market through innovative models of weapons and military equipment used in the conflict in Ukraine.
