Report shows India’s imports declining slightly amid rising domestic production, while Ukraine tops global imports and the US remains the world’s largest arms exporter
09 March, 2026 – New Delhi : Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that India has emerged as the world’s second-largest importer of weapons accounting for 8.3 per cent of global arms imports for a five-year block, from 2021-2025.
Ukraine, that is involved in war with Russia, occupies the top spot and accounts for 9.7 per cent of global imports between 2021 and 2025.
The SIPRI report, titled ‘Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2025’ released on Monday morning, had a positive indication that India’s s dependence on imported arms had reduced. It compared a previous five-year block of the years 2016-2020 and read, “Indian arms imports fell by 4.0 per cent between 2016–20 and 2021–25.”
The decrease can be partly attributed to India’s growing ability to design and produce its own weapons— although there are often substantial delays in domestic production, the report said.
It also highlighted that India’s recent orders or planned orders—including up to 140 combat aircraft from France and 6 submarines from Germany—indicate its continued and probably increasing reliance on foreign suppliers.
India’s principal suppliers for the period 2021-2025 have been Russia, France and Israel, said the SIPRI report even as it cited how India has shifted its arms relations away from Russia towards Western suppliers, especially France, Israel and the USA, over the past decade.
“Russia’s share of Indian arms imports dropped from 70 per cent in 2011–15 to 51 per cent in 2016–20 and then to 40 per cent in 2021–25,” the SIPRI said. During the period between2021-25, France and Israel supplied 29 per cent and 15 per cent of India’s imports.
The SIPRI report further argued that India’s imports are driven by its tensions with both China and Pakistan. These tensions have regularly led to armed conflict, as they did briefly between India and Pakistan in May 2025, with both sides using imported major arms.
Pakistan is the fifth largest importer of weapons accounting for 4.2 per cent of all global imports. It had a 66 per cent hike from the previous five-year block of 2016-2020.
China supplied 80 per cent of all weapons with Turkey and Netherlands being the second and third largest suppliers to Islamabad.
At the global level, arms transfers were the highest since 2011–15, according to the report. The United States remained the largest supplier of weapons, accounting for 42 percent of all international arms transfers in 2021–25, up from 36 percent in 2016–20.
USA exported arms to 99 states in 2021–25, including 35 states in Europe, 18 in the Americas, 17 in Africa, 17 in Asia and Oceania and 12 in the Middle East.
France was the second largest supplier of major arms in 2021–25, accounting for 9.8 per cent of global exports. Russia was at the third spot while Germany overtook China to become the fourth largest arms exporter in 2021–25.
The Tribune