Russia’s arms exports are going bust as foreign buyers bolt and the Ukraine war chews through its weapons

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Russia’s arms exports are going bust as foreign buyers bolt and the Ukraine war chews through its weapons

Russia’s weapons exports have plummeted amid the Ukraine conflict.

France overtook Russia last year as the second-largest arms exporter globally.

Russian weapons makers face a range of challenges that have emerged following the Ukraine invasion.

It has been three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the conflict has had a profound effect on the Russian weapons industry, causing its arms exports to plummet.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIRPI), which researches conflict and arms,

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that Russian arms exports decreased by half from 2019 to 2023 compared to the previous five-year *******.

Other estimates paint an even bleaker picture.

Pavel Luzin, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a DC think-tank, calculated that Russian arms exports tallied less than $1 billion from January to December 2024. They had stood at $14.6 billion in 2021; they dropped to $8 billion in 2022 before falling further to about $3 billion in 2023.

Tellingly,

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has surpassed Russia as the world’s second-biggest arms exporter.

“We see that Russia, as an arms exporter, has generally failed,” Luzin said last November.

The staggering drop in sales is partially the result of a shift by Russian arms manufacturers away from export contracts and toward producing more weapons for the Russian military fighting in Ukraine.

What is Russia rushing to replace?

The Russian military has suffered very high matériel losses in the war.

Open-source intelligence website Oryx indicates

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3,773 tanks, 1,933 armored fighting vehicles, 5,531 infantry fighting vehicles, 615 armored personnel carriers, nearly 2,000 artillery pieces of all types, and many other pieces of equipment.

Since the above are only the losses that could be verified via photographs or videos, Oryx estimates that true Russian losses are significantly higher.

Russian arms companies have been working overtime to replace them. (Moscow has also been tapping into its inventory of older, Soviet-era equipment; however, 2025 may be the last year it can rely on stored weapons, Luzin

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.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the Uralvagonzavod factory in Russia in February 2024Ramil Sitdikov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Although the credibility of official Russian data is suspect, “production of new military equipment increased substantially in 2023,” as a result of domestic demand, SIRPI said, with Rostec and Tactical Missile Corp’s, Russia’s two biggest arms companies, seeing their combined revenues increase by 40% that year.

However, that momentum may not be sustainable.

Increased production has put pressure on Russian arms companies, which face manpower and financial shortages and growing costs due to sanctions imposed by Western countries, Luzin wrote. They, therefore, struggle to keep churning out the necessary equipment and have largely paused foreign contracts.

Where has everyone gone?

Russian companies are also losing customers. In 2019, Russia sold weapons to 31 countries — in 2023, that number had fallen to 12, according to SIRPI. This is a function of supply chains and geopolitics.

Since the purchase of weapons is often a statement of alignment, several countries who used to buy Russian arms have turned to Western, domestic, or other alternatives.

Additionally, due to sanctions imposed on Russia, maintaining Russian weapons is becoming increasingly difficult for buyers. Therefore, to safeguard themselves from uncertain maintenance, countries are seeking safer sellers.

In Asia and Oceania, which had accounted for nearly 70% of overall Russian weapons exports between 2018 and 2023, the US is now the biggest seller. And in sub-Saharan Africa, where Russia used to be the biggest seller, the number one spot is now held by China.

“Russia’s arms export categories in the last two decades [have mainly] included air defense systems, combat aircraft/helicopters and their parts (including engines), and some naval systems like diesel-electric submarines, corvettes and anti-ship missiles,” Luzin, who is also a visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, told Business Insider.

These weapons, however, have been far from excellent, he added.

Research published

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indicates that China has begun challenging Russia in the lower-value end of the arms spectrum,what is known as the “value arms market.”

At the higher end of the spectrum, South Korea has been making significant strides to Russia’s detriment thanks to its quick production times and NATO-compatible weapons.

Besides shifting the production focus of its weapons manufacturers, the war in Ukraine has damaged Russian arms exports in more ways, with some of the country’s more publicized systems (like the S-400)

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than initially touted by Moscow.

Reputational losses are also influencing the downturn of the country’s arms exports, Luzin told Business Insider.

Further, the dependency of Russian companies on “import electronics and machine tools on the manufacturing stage” has also had an impact, he added. Access to these components is harder to come by due to international sanctions.

And even when the war ends, things may not go back to business as usual for the Russian arms industry. Covering the lost ground will be “hard enough if not impossible at all,” Luzin said.

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