ndia has bought Russian weapons for over half a century now.

They have spent billions of scarce foreign exchange (especially after the USSR dissolved and they no longer received ‘superpower discounts.’)

India has also spent billions on arms from the UK, France, and most recently from Israel and the United States.

India would be foolish indeed to spend money on weapon systems that do not work or are ineffective for their purpose due to maintenance issues.

India has been engaged in 4 wars with Pakistan, 2 with China, and has battled insurgencies in Kashmir and the northeast for decades. Additionally, India conducts numerous high-end exercises with nations fielding advanced military technologies, such as the US,
Japan, the UK, France, Israel, and Australia.

In all these situations India used its Russian, American, UK, French, Israeli, and Indian weapon systems to good effect. India also frequently conducts large scale army, navy, and air force exercises that involve intense sorties and high surge rates in all kinds of
conditions. Ineffective equipment would not survive such use and would not be purchased by India.

This brings up a key point about India’s weapon purchases. India is different from the vast majority of weapon users who purchase Russian arms. India has plenty of scientific and technical personnel and the industrial capabilities to use Russian arms to their full
potential.

Russian arms typically get a negative reputation in the West due to many poorly trained users of advanced Russian arms who get decimated when facing Western trained and equipped forces. However India has highly trained forces and they have fought in actual
wars with these weapons with a good record. No wars lost against Pakistan in 4 conflicts and 1 for 2 against China in two conflicts. India’s performance in demanding exercises such as Red Flag, Blue Flag, (US) Pitch Black (Australia) Indradhanush and Konkani (UK)
and Varuna (France) was also noted.

It is true that Russian arms come with well known deficiencies in aftermarket support and problem solving, and Russia has been known to price gouge its customers on spare parts. This Russian tendency to go all in on sales and then offer scanty support to the
customer after the sale has cost Russia some arms deals and goodwill, and is another factor in the bad reputation Russian arms usually get, compared to Western weapons. Weapon systems simply do not perform well when they are starved for parts and not serviced
properly!

Russia is making an effort to up its game to Western standards in the maintenance and aftermarket support areas, particularly with India, its largest customer in many areas.

India avoided a great many of these problems due to their aforementioned technical and scientific capabilities, which allowed them to solve many of the problems on their own, as well as manufacture their own spares. India also license built a huge variety of Russian
arms, unlike many other customers who simply lacked the ability to do this. Systems such as T-72 and T-90 tanks, MiG-21 and MiG-27 fighters, Konkurs ATGMS, and most recently agreements to manufacture the KA-226 helicopter, AK-203 assault rifle, and possibly
the IL-114 regional turboprop transport allowed (or will allow in the case of yet to be finalized agreements) India to gain operational knowledge and technical proficiency with the complex arms systems they operate, so they became quite proficient.

In sum, as the Israeli’s and Americans noted in their frequent wars in the Middle East, it's not so much the weapon systems as those who wield it, and India is an effective wielder of its defense systems.
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