India will get the mobile S-400 Triumf air defence missilesystem (NATO reporting name SA-21 Growler) by 2023 and Russia has confirmedthat it working on the schedule after the issue of advance payment for thedelivery of the long-range surface-to-air weapons platform was settled."The contract for S-400s will be implemented in compliance with theaccords reached and the documents signed. The issue of making an advancepayment under the contract has been resolved. We are not commenting on thedetails," Russia’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperationtold TASS news agency on Thursday in Moscow.

The statement came within 24 hours of Russian Embassy inIndia Minister-Counsellor Roman Babushkin clarified that the missile systemwill reach the Indian armed forces in the next four years. "The term ofthe contract’s implementation is well known: by 2023, these systems must bedelivered to India. Russia is ready to take all necessary efforts to follow thetime parameters of this agreement. We proceed from the fact that the contractwill be implemented in full in accordance with the interests of both countriesand the accords reached. We intend to strictly comply with them,"Babushkin said in New Delhi on Wednesday.

S-400 Triumf is currently the most advanced long-rangeSurface-to-Air-Missile system in the world which can track targets 600kilometres away and hit them at a range of 400 kms at an altitude of even 30kms. The S-400 can engage targets independently as well as connect with otherradars to receive data from them.

However, the United States of America has expressed itsapprehensions over the S-400 deal while claiming that the American auir defencesystems were better than those developed by Russia. US Indo-Pacific Commandchief Admiral Philip Scot Davidson had in July 2019 said at the the AspenSecurity Forum in Colorado that US and India are still engaged in talks overthe S-400 deal.

"We're still in dialogue with them about that S-400.India is acquiring the S-400. It's a Russian air defence system. That's a bitof a problem. Will you continue to dialogue? I, I think they intend to do that.I'm trying to clarify for them that the tactical and technical case that's soimportant here. US equipment is outperforming on the globe and you see thisperiodically come up against Russia, and US equipment is outperforming India'squite proud of their non-aligned policy status. They view this discussion aboutthe S-400 as a policy issue and not a tactical and technical one. So we havegot a little bit of ways to go there," he had said.

But both India and Russia have made it clear that there isno question of going back on the S-400 deal. The US has already sanctioned itsNATO ally Turkey under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act(CAATSA) for buying the S-400 from Russia by throwing it out of the F-35Lightning II stealth fighter programme and stopping the delivery of the jetsalready paid for.