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2022 - India refused to buy Russian Mi-17V5 helicopters. the rejection of the deal has nothing to do with the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine. Its reason was the desire of local authorities to support the national program to replace imported products with local ones.
“A decision was made to close the deal. The government explained that the decision was made as part of supporting the program for the production of local medium-lift helicopters long before the start of the war in Ukraine,” the report says.
As I mentioned in my post, the war may not have anything to do with the decision from Indian government to cancel this deal. But it is being presented to the Americans as India's reaction to the war in Ukraine. India is a strategic partner for both the US and Russia. The Americans can't pressurize India as much as they do with Pakistan. The latter is overdependent on military aid from the US, while India's case is not like that. BTW, for the last decade or so, the Indian government has been trying to replace the imported helicopters with the locally manufactured ones. But the fact is that the ones manufactured by the HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) can't compete with the imported products.