US, Russia remain largest exporters of weapons in the world

The United States and Russia remained the main exporters in 2014-2019, although the volume of arms sales of Russia decreased compared to 2010-2014 by 18%. That is according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), released on Monday.

The new report on the state of world arms trade notes that in 2015-2019 the trade volume increased by 5.5% compared with the previous five-year period (2010-2014).

"Between 2010-14 and 2015-19, exports of major arms from the USA grew by 23 per cent, raising its share of total global arms exports to 36 per cent. In 2015-19 total US arms exports were 76 per cent higher than those of the second-largest arms exporter in the world, Russia. Major arms transferred from the USA went to a total of 96 countries," report notes.

‘Half of US arms exports in the past five years went to the Middle East, and half of those went to Saudi Arabia,’ says Pieter D. Wezeman, Senior Researcher at SIPRI.

‘At the same time, demand for the USA’s advanced military aircraft increased, particularly in Europe, Australia, Japan and Taiwan.’

The share of Russia's military exports over the past 5 years amounted to 21% of the global volume, which is 6% less than the indicator for the period 2010-2014. The supply of Russian weapons to India, Russia's main partner in the field of arms trade, decreased significantly - by 47% as compared with the previous period 2010-2014.

Major arms exports by Russia decreased by 18 per cent between 2010-14 and 2015-19. ‘Russia has lost traction in India