- NEWSWEEK - DAVID BRENNAN AND YEVGENY KUKLYCHEV - MAR 12, 2023 -
Russia's arms export industry—historically the second most lucrative in the world after the United States—appears to be collapsing under the weight of technological shifts, international political isolation, and its disastrous war in Ukraine, according to new figures released by the world's leading weapons industry watchdog.
Data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) on Monday show that Russia's military exports fell by 31 percent over the past five years when compared with the five years previous, threatening Moscow's position as the world's second most influential weapons dealer.
Russia's share of global arms exports fell from 22 to 16 percent between 2013-2017 and 2018-2022, leaving it far behind the U.S. which accounts for 40 percent of military exports, and only slightly ahead of France, which was the source of 11 percent of arms exports over the past five years.
SIPRI's latest data confirms Newsweek reporting from last year indicating a bleak trajectory bleak for Russian military exporters. "It's really substantial, but it's not really surprising," Siemon Wezeman, a senior SIPRI researcher, told Newsweek. "And it's not just because of what's happening in Ukraine in 2022; it's something that you could see coming."
The West has been working to isolate Russia since its invasion and annexation of Crimea—and its fomentation of unrest in Ukraine's Donbas region—since 2014. The effort has been supercharged since Russian troops again rolled into Ukrainian territory in February 2022. Led by Washington, D.C., Moscow's adversaries are chipping away at the Kremlin's customer base.
Meanwhile, the staggeringly high rates of Russian casualties and equipment losses in Ukraine are putting defense producers under pressure, as are the less-than-stellar performances of key Russian weapons platforms that appear unable to counter the most advanced NATO arms used by Ukrainian troops.
Denis Manturov, Russia's deputy prime minister of industry and trade, told Interfax last month that a "significant" portion of weapons being produced in the country are being directed to Ukrainian battlefields. "Their provision is our absolute priority, but even in these conditions we continue to work with our partners from friendly countries and fulfill our obligations," he said.
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