Russia's Arms Sales Down 70%; Ukraine War To Further Reduce Number

After cresting in the early 2010s, Russian arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Photo Insert: If the war on Ukraine dealt a knockout blow to Russia’s arms exports, the industry had already been on the ropes for some time.

The Wall Street Journal referred to Russia’s precipitous decline in arms exports as among “the casualties of Russia’s war in Ukraine,” Cullen Hendrix of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) wrote for Foreign Policy.

Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) showed Russia’s arms exports began falling in earnest in 2019 and were already down nearly 20% relative to 2011, the record high for the Russian arms industry.

That year, arms sales nearly matched US arms exports and were delivered to 35 countries. Eleven years later, Russian arms exports had fallen by nearly 70%, with deliveries to just 12 countries.

If the war on Ukraine dealt a knockout blow to Russia’s arms exports, the industry had already been on the ropes for some time.

Already facing substantial and largely self-inflicted wounds, what do Russia’s falling arms sales portend for the country’s position in global affairs? They point to further erosion of Russia’s—and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s—international influence and increasing dependence on oil and gas exports.

Writing in the Washington Post, Maria Snegovaya admonished the West to think of Russia “as an ordinary petrostate, not an extraordinary superpower” back in 2015. With its defense industry in the doldrums, this assessment is even more true now than it was then.

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