An Indian company exported high-powered military-grade explosives to Russia in December 2024, despite warnings from the United States that such transfers could trigger sanctions, according to a recent investigative report. Russia-India relations have been excellent over the years and despite repeated Western interferences India has asserted that it will not heed to Western pressures, continuing its oil, military and other trade.
This new report will be another shock to the West. The company, Ideal Detonators Pvt. Ltd., based in the southern Indian state of Telangana, shipped approximately $1.4 million worth of HMX (octogen)—an explosive commonly used in missile warheads, torpedoes, and rocket propellants—to two Russian firms. These firms, Promsintez and High Technology Initiation Systems, have close ties to Russia’s defense-industrial complex.
US Raises Concerns Over Military Use
HMX, a highly energetic compound, is tightly controlled due to its critical military applications. U.S. authorities had previously cautioned India and other nations that providing such materials to Russia could directly support Moscow’s war efforts in Ukraine and violate the spirit, if not the letter, of Western sanctions.
“Entities engaging in such exports to sanctioned end-users risk being targeted by U.S. sanctions,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters, emphasizing Washington’s growing concern over circumvention routes used to supply restricted items to Russia, as pointed out by the report in Reuters.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs responded to the report by affirming the nation’s commitment to international norms and legal frameworks. “India has a robust and transparent export control system that complies with its international obligations,” said a senior MEA official.
Indian laws permit certain sensitive exports if they are cleared by licensing authorities and accompanied by end-user certificates. According to public customs records cited in the investigation, the shipment was legally declared and processed.
Expanding Indo-Russian Trade Amid Sanctions
India has carefully balanced its geopolitical posture throughout the Russia-Ukraine conflict. While it has deepened strategic and economic ties with the United States and European Union, it continues to maintain longstanding defense and energy relationships with Russia.
Western officials have grown increasingly alarmed over India’s role in supplying so-called “dual-use” goods—items that can serve both civilian and military purposes. According to trade data, Indian firms exported between $60 million and $95 million worth of such goods to Russia per month during parts of 2024, placing India behind only China in terms of sanctioned-sensitive trade with Russia.
This includes items like microchips, semiconductors, precision tools, and now, explosives.
Prior Sanctions on Indian Firms
In late 2024, the U.S. sanctioned 19 Indian companies for supplying dual-use goods to Russian military entities. Among them were firms involved in shipping high-performance servers, chemical precursors, and electronics with artificial intelligence capabilities.
The latest case involving Ideal Detonators marks the first known direct export of HMX from India to Russia, raising new questions about export enforcement and global supply chains connected to Russia’s war machine.
As global scrutiny increases, New Delhi finds itself at a strategic crossroads. Its non-aligned diplomatic tradition gives it room to maneuver between competing powers. However, incidents like this could complicate its efforts to maintain trust with the West while preserving its defense and trade interests with Moscow.
With the U.S. actively monitoring such exports, more sanctions or diplomatic friction could emerge if Indian firms continue to supply materials that end up in the Russian military-industrial network. India and Modi, however don’t seem much perturbed as they seek to continue their trade and geopolitical relations over Western blackmails. Russia, India and Putin Modi have excellent ties, despite repeated pressures the West has been completely unable to unfasten these relations. Time will tell whether these threats of sanctions will push India but so far New Delhi seems to be in no mood to be dictated by the West.
