Artillery shells sold by Indian arms manufacturers have been diverted to Ukraine by European customers, and despite Moscow’s protests, New Delhi has not intervened to stop the trade.
According to sources and customs data, the transfer of munitions to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia has been ongoing for over a year now. Indian arms export regulations restrict the use of weapons to the declared purchaser, who risks having future sales terminated if unauthorised transfers take place.
According to Indian officials, the Kremlin has brought up the issue at least twice, including during a meeting in July between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Indian counterpart.
Russia and India’s foreign and defence ministries did not respond to questions. Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesperson for India’s foreign ministry, stated at a press conference in January that India had not sent or sold artillery shells to Ukraine.
Several Western companies had explosive filling capabilities, but lacked the manufacturing capacity to mass produce artillery shells, the executive stated.
Yantra announced in its 2022-23 annual report that it had reached an agreement with an unnamed Italian client to establish a manufacturing line for L15A1 shells, which the former Yantra executive identified as MES.
MES and Yantra India did not respond to emails requesting comment. Customs data show that Yantra shipped $35 million in empty 155mm L15A1 shells to MES between February 2022 and July 2024. Customs records also show that in February 2024, Dince Hill, a U.K.-based arms company whose board includes a senior MES executive, exported $6.7 million in ammunition from Italy to Ukraine.
Among the exports were 155mm L15A1 shells, which the customs declaration stated were manufactured by MES for Ukraine’s Defence Ministry and supplied for “promoting Ukraine’s defence capability and mobilisation readiness.”
Dince Hill did not respond to an email requesting comments. Its new owner, Rome-based Effequattro Consulting, could not be contacted.
In another case, Spain’s Transport Minister Oscar Puente shared on social media in May an end-user agreement signed by a Czech defence official authorising the transfer of 120mm and 125mm ammunition shells from Munitions India to arms dealer Czech Defence Systems. Pro-Palestinian activists claimed that the Borkum, a vessel carrying Indian-made arms that had stopped in a Spanish port, was transporting the weapons to Israel.
In May, the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reported that the final destination was Ukraine. Munitions India and CDS did not respond to enquiries. According to Customs records dated March 27, Munitions India shipped 10,000 rounds of 120mm and 125mm mortar shells valued at more than $9 million from Chennai to CDS.
The defence industry sources reported that Delhi produced only a small portion of the ammunition used by Ukraine, with one official estimating that it accounted for less than 1% of the total arms imported by Kyiv since the war. The news agency was unable to determine whether the munitions were sold or donated to Kyiv by European customers.
According to a Spanish and a senior Indian official, as well as a former top executive at Yantra India, a state-owned company whose munitions are used by Ukraine, among the European countries sending Indian munitions to Ukraine are Italy and the Czech Republic, which is leading an initiative to supply Kyiv with artillery shells from outside the European Union.
Meccanica per l’Elettronica e Servomeccanismi (MES), an unlisted Italian defence contractor, was among the companies sending Indian-made shells to Ukraine, according to a former top Yantra official. MES is Yantra’s largest foreign client. The executive stated that the Rome-based company buys empty shells from India and fills them with explosives.
The Indian official stated that Delhi was monitoring the situation. However, he and a defence industry executive with direct knowledge of the transfers stated that India had taken no action to limit supply to Europe. The Ukrainian, Italian, Spanish, and Czech defence ministries did not return requests for comment.
Delhi and Washington, Ukraine’s main security backers, have recently strengthened defence and diplomatic cooperation in the face of a rising China, which they both regard as a major rival. India has also maintained close ties with Russia, its primary arms supplier for decades, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has refused to join the Western-led sanctions regime against Moscow.
However, Delhi, which has long been the world’s largest weapons importer, sees the ongoing war in Europe as an opportunity to expand its fledgling arms export sector.
Ukraine is facing a severe artillery ammunition shortage as it battles to contain a Russian offensive towards the eastern logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
The White House declined to comment, while the US State Department referred questions about Delhi’s arms exports to the Indian government. Between 2018 and 2023, India exported slightly more than $3 billion in arms, according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stated at an Aug. 30 conference that defence exports surpassed $2.5 billion in the previous fiscal year and that Delhi aimed to increase that figure to around $6 billion by 2029.
According to commercially available customs records, in the two years preceding the February 2022 invasion, three major Indian ammunition manufacturers – Yantra, Munitions India, and Kalyani Strategic Systems – exported only $2.8 million in munitions components to Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Slovenia, where defence contractors have heavily invested in Ukraine supply chains.
Between February 2022 and July 2024, the figure rose to $135.25 million, including completed munitions, which India began exporting to the four countries. According to Arzan Tarapore, an India defence expert at Stanford University, Delhi’s push to expand its arms exports played a significant role in the transfer of arms to Ukraine. “Probably in the sudden recent expansion, some instances of end-user violations have occurred.”
Russia, which provides more than 60% of Delhi’s arms imports, is an important partner for India. Modi chose Moscow for his first bilateral international trip since winning a third term in office. According to an Indian official with direct knowledge of the encounter, during another meeting that month in Kazakhstan between top Indian diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Lavrov, the Russian minister pressed his counterpart about Indian munitions being used by Ukrainians, complaining that some were made by state-owned Indian companies.
The official did not provide Jaishankar’s response. Walter Ladwig, a South Asia security expert at King’s College London, stated that the diversion of a small amount of ammunition was geopolitically advantageous for Delhi. “It allows India to show partners in the West that it is not ‘on Russia’s side’ in the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” he said, adding that Moscow had little influence over Delhi’s actions.
