A story quoting Indian Air Force (IAF) officials on the grounding of Su-30s at Pune’s Lohegaon air base reportedly due to shortage of spare tyres has sparked a debate in the media and among critics on the quality of spares support provided by the Russians. According to the IAF sources quoted in the report, only 10 to 12 Sukhois in the two squadrons were in a functional state. The squadrons—each having 16 fighters on an average—urgently required at least another 80-odd tyres to make all the fighters, an officer purportedly said. The story further elaborated that the lack of spare tyres had been dogging India’s frontline fighters for quite some time now and that, a four-member delegation of defence ministry officials has reportedly left for Russia to seek spare parts, including tyres for the fighters.

The Sino-Indian 1962 war and its aftermath, the American military’s bias towards Pakistan, with the latter joining the US-led South East Asian Treaty Organisation and Central Treaty Organisation, and Delhi’s ardent adherence to the Non-Aligned Movement—all of this propelled India into the willing arms of the erstwhile USSR as its principal, if not sole, supplier of defence arms and equipment. For almost three decades, the special relationship between the two countries ensured that India’s defence needs continued to be met by the Soviets. In the scenario of Command Economy practiced by the communist Soviet Union, with little relationship between production and profits, India enjoyed the benefits of friendship prices owing to its special ties with Moscow. The breakup of the Soviet Union turned many industries on their heads but the worst affected was perhaps the aviation industry which had inter-dependent manufacturing units interspersed in a large number of breakaway states.

Irrefutable and ineffaceable is the breakup’s negative impact on the efforts to maintain the equipment the Russians supplied to the IAF. However, in the reconstruction phase, the new Russian Federation and its allied CIS countries were also quick to realise the importance of the aviation industry for their economic survival to haul it back on track in the best possible way. While India today has a much better choice in selecting its defence equipment suppliers, the large-scale ongoing and in-the-pipeline defence procurement programmes clearly highlight Delhi’s heavy dependence on Russian equipment. Su-30 MKI is one such defence deal of great importance, wherein the IAF is to acquire a total of 230 of these frontline air dominance fighters, out of which 140 are to be licence-produced by HAL in India.