The joke about Trump supplying weapons to Russia seems exaggerated only now, according to Khara.

It is believed that the meeting of representatives from the United States and Russia in Saudi Arabia, along with their subsequent plans regarding the bilateral track, marked the beginning of a certain path toward ending the war. In this context, UNIAN spoke with expert Alexander Khara about the future of the Russian defense industry if military actions against Ukraine were to cease, considering the separate negotiations between the US and Russia.

Let’s imagine that one day the war will come to an end, although we do not know when that will happen. What will happen to the Russian defense sector, which has significantly ramped up its arms production?

They need to increase the production of equipment and ammunition because we have almost completely destroyed all Soviet stockpiles, meaning they will certainly not stop. They may reduce defense spending and military-industrial complex investments somewhat due to serious internal economic issues, such as labor shortages in the civilian economy and corporate debts. Essentially, they are printing rubles, which affects inflation and worsens the overall economic situation. This is compounded by a number of other structural economic problems.

Several scenarios can be considered.

The first: normalization of relations with the United States begins, and they start to lift sanctions and export restrictions. This means that other countries could supply Russia with components, technologies, and materials that are currently available only in limited quantities through third countries. Under these conditions, China would be less restrained in what it supplies to the Russian Federation. I’m not just talking about weapons, although that could also happen; they will be able to increase supplies of machinery, technologies, and more to Russia.

Of course, Trump’s goal is to pull Russia away from China, and there may be sporadic actions to prevent China from gaining both economic benefits and maintaining a strategic connection with Moscow—they are not allies, but there is a degree of rapprochement.

Someone on Twitter joked that soon Trump himself would be supplying weapons to Russia. Right now, that seems like an exaggeration, but considering the trend and Trump’s desire to detach Russia from China to forge alliances in the Middle East and counter Iran, I wouldn’t rule out that something could be supplied from the States.

Therefore, the outlook is not very favorable for us. I am sure that Europeans will not do this. We saw at the Munich Security Conference how the two shores of the Atlantic are diverging: supplying Russia with weapons is essentially handing a rope to someone who intends to hang you.

It is clear that the Russians need a large amount of equipment for production, components, and technologies. They are using this time to prepare seriously, unlike how it was in 2022.

How much time might Russia need to recover?

I don’t think even the CIA can calculate that. According to European estimates, they need between two to six years to build up their military potential and then attack a NATO member country. But this depends on many factors. If sanctions on energy resources are lifted, Russia will receive more oil dollars. Key partners are primarily China and India. But Europeans are also buying Russian oil, albeit mixed, and turning a blind eye to it.

Additionally, they need some time to assess what has been happening on the battlefield. How much it has changed. When they increased the number of drones and changed tactics—that’s adaptation on the go. From an operational concept perspective, they need to realize this, create a new vision, and emphasize key components that enhance certain capabilities. They need to build everything from conventional weapons to high-tech ones. It’s absolutely clear that their electronic warfare systems and other innovations have worked quite well, and they will scale these up. They need a large quantity of air defense systems because Russia is a vast country, and our almost daily drone strikes have shown that they are unable to cope with this; they cannot secure the skies even against such imperfect means, let alone cruise missiles. Therefore, it’s difficult to specify time frames here. Everything will depend on the system parameters.

What do you see as Russia's prospects for producing missiles and drones—"Kalibrs," "Iskanders," "Shaheds"? Will production stop, remain at the current level, or will it increase?

We have the same issue. We need large reserves so that we can use them for specific tasks at the right time. Considering that a significant portion of these assets will be destroyed on the way to the target, they need a large array.

With missiles, they won’t be able to leapfrog and come up with some new super-weapons. There will certainly be developments, but first, they need to restore the number of missiles they have expended on us, because this is not just about us. This is a matter of a constant threat to Europeans. Europeans have air defense and missile defense systems, and they will continue to develop them well. Accordingly, to penetrate these systems, they need a greater quantity of such assets.

Another issue is the modernization of their nuclear potential: “Nutcracker” and some new “wonder weapons”—they will also spend money there. They have seen how we are intercepting the same “Iskanders” and “Dagger” missiles, so they need to improve these systems and have a large quantity to reliably penetrate European missile defense and be able to inflict significant damage.

Alexander Khara is a diplomat and expert at the Center for Defense Strategies.

From 2008 to 2011, he served as Deputy Head of the Department for Foreign Policy Aspects of National Security at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

Later, from 2014 to 2019, he was the Director of the Department of Multilateral International Cooperation at the “Maidan of Foreign Affairs” analytical center. Since 2015, he has also served as Deputy Chairman of the Board of the “Institute for Strategic Black Sea Studies.” Since 2020, he has been an advisor to the Minister of Defense of Ukraine.

Since January 2021, he has been an expert at the Center for Defense Strategies.