Rosoboronexport at 25: Driving Russia’s Military-Technical Power Abroad

Russian arms deliveries to foreign partners through Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, part of the Rostec state corporation, have exceeded $230 billion, Rostec State Corporation's CEO Sergey Chemezov said on Rosoboronexport's 25th anniversary.

"Over the past quarter century, Rosoboronexport has become a leader in the global arms market, significantly increasing its order book and supply volume. The company has signed over 30,000 contracts with partners and exported products to over 120 countries worth over $230 billion."

In May, Rosoboronexport reported signing more than 20 contracts worth $7 billion since the beginning of 2025.

"Today, most of the systems offered by Rosoboronexport to its partners have seen extensive combat use. Our customers study this experience and draw conclusions in favor of our products," emphasized Rosoboronexport Director General Alexander Mikheev.

As the Military Yearbook 2026 by Centre for Analysis of World Arms Trade emphasizes, the military-technical cooperation has been most active with Russia's strategic and priority partners. These include India, China, and other Asian countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan.

In Europe, these included Belarus and Serbia. Among the countries in the Latin America are Cuba, Venezuela, and Peru. Partnerships with African countries such as Egypt, Algeria, Uganda, Congo, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and South Africa are actively evolving.

"Range of defense products supplied to foreign customers is extremely wide and covers all branches of the armed forces. A contract for the supply of S-400 Triumph SAM systems to India, signed on October 5, 2018 during the India-Russia Annual Bilateral Summit in Delhi, was the largest in Rosoboronexport’s history. At the same time, India is Russia's largest partner in terms of military-technical cooperation. In addition to India, the S-400 systems are in service in Belarus, China, and Turkey. The signing of a contract to supply these systems to Turkey is significant in that this country preferred Russian products to those of its NATO partners," – noted the Military Yearbook 2026.

Turkey's choice, however, is not surprising – the S-400s are the longest-range air defense systems capable of intercepting targets at a range of up to 380 km, while offering high resistance to jamming, a large missile basic load and other advantages, emphasized Military Yearbook 2026.

As per Military Yearbook 2026, "Industrial partnerships are actively evolving with many countries in the Middle East, Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, the CIS and Europe. The main forms of cooperation are the establishment of joint ventures, localization of production abroad, technical assistance in the construction of defense facilities, and joint development and production of military equipment. Among the projects being implemented are the production of UAVs, precision guided weapons, small arms, joint development of armored vehicles, adaptation of Russian missiles to partner aircraft, and the establishment of equipment repair and maintenance centers".