The India Russia land system relationship is back in the room in New Delhi this week, where the 5th India-Russia Army Land System Sub-Group (ALSSG) meeting opened under the aegis of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military and Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-M&MTC). The four-day engagement began Monday and runs through Friday.

India Russia land system talks open under IRIGC-M&MTC

The stated aim, per the Indian Army, is to further strengthen the longstanding bilateral defence partnership. Photographs released with the announcement show delegation heads seated across a conference table beneath the Indian and Russian flags, followed by a joint group photograph at Army headquarters.

Lt Gen Rahul R Singh, Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Capability Development and Sustenance), led the Indian delegation. Maj Gen Tufekchi Aleksandr, Deputy Head of the Main Armoured Directorate at Russia's Ministry of Defence, headed the visiting Russian side. Neither the announcement nor the accompanying photographs specified the size of either delegation, or the officers accompanying the two leads.

Delegations led by DCOAS and Russia's armoured directorate

Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing mutual trust, according to the Army's announcement, and to advancing what it termed Defence Industrial and Technological Cooperation. No further breakdown of the four days' agenda, participant numbers or specific programmes under discussion accompanied the post.


IRIGC-M&MTC: the commission behind the sub-group

The ALSSG sits below IRIGC-M&MTC, the apex body that has overseen India Russia land system and other military-technical engagement since 2000, co-chaired by the Defence Ministers of the two countries. The Moscow-New Delhi security relationship runs on several such parallel tracks, of which the ALSSG is one.

Two working groups, nine sub-groups

Beneath the ministers sit two Working Groups and nine Sub-Groups, according to the Indian Embassy in Moscow, each handling a distinct slice of the relationship, from planning to naval and air platforms. The 21st IRIGC-M&MTC session itself was held in Moscow in December 2024, alongside the commissioning of the frigate INS Tushil at Kaliningrad.

IDW has tracked comparable bilateral defence machinery elsewhere this year, including a Joint Working Group round with Uzbekistan in Tashkent, part of the same pattern of periodic service-to-service reviews India runs with several partners. A separate Working Group under the same India-Russia commission last concluded in Moscow, co-chaired at the level of Chief of Integrated Defence Staff rather than by land-forces officers.

A partnership that keeps returning to hardware

Land systems cooperation between the two militaries has deep roots. India's armoured formations still field large numbers of Russian-origin T-90 and T-72 tanks, part of a broader equipment relationship that also runs through platforms such as the S-400 Sudarshan air defence system, even as New Delhi pushes indigenous programmes under Aatmanirbhar Bharat.

Neither side named specific platforms, contracts or figures tied to this week's round, keeping the announcement to the fact of the meeting and the two delegation heads who convened it.