India could get its fifth S-400 system from Russia early next year

The last of the five S-400 systems contracted by the Narendra Modi government in 2018 at a cost of $5.43 billion is expected to reach India in January-February, according to government officials aware of the development.

The S-400 Triumf is a Russian long-range surface-to-air missile system. (Reuters/File)A pre-dispatch team will visit Russia in December ahead of the delivery. Parts will likely begin arriving in January, the officials added.

Earlier reports suggested the system could reach India in November. The S-400 Triumf is a Russian long-range surface-to-air missile system that can detect and shoot down aircraft, missiles, drones and airborne surveillance platforms.

India received its fourth Russian-made S-400 air defence system in May-June 2026. Of the four systems currently in service, three are deployed on the western flank and one in the eastern theatre. During Operation Sindoor in May 2025, the S-400 system came out with flying colours, with one of its long-range missiles targeting a Pakistan airborne early warning aircraft at a distance of about 300 kilometers in the Pakistani heartland.

While Pakistan used kamikaze drones to target the S-400 systems deployed in Adampur and Bhuj air bases, the Russian missile system ensured that none of the Pakistani fighters inflicted any damage. Apart from the five systems contracted in 2018, India's Defence Acquisition Council granted Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) for five more S-400 systems in March this year.

To be sure, the contract has not been signed yet. India is also evaluating the Russian short-range air defence system Pantsir, according to the people cited above. Officials are weighing 52 such systems under a buy-and-make arrangement, with 13 being imported from Russia and 39 made in India.

No contract has been signed yet. The Pantsir system stops drones, cruise missiles, helicopters and low-flying aircraft that get close to a target. In a layered air defence network, it could guard tank regiments as well as long-range systems like the S-400 against drone swarms.

Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025.

He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India.

He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach.

He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014.

His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014).

He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K.

Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More