Worried about India’s procurement of S-400 air defence missiles from its archrival Russia, the US has requested the Defence Ministry to give a briefing to the Pentagon on the weapon system explaining how it would not compromise American systems operational in the Indian armed forces.

The request for briefing has come from the US at a time when it has enacted laws that provide for imposition of sanctions on doing military trade with Russia. It had created issues for India’s procurement of the S-400 missile systems.

“A high-level team of the Defence Ministry and Indian Air Force including a senior Air Marshal will be in Washington in the middle of August for allaying fears of the American administration that their military hardware data could be compromised, reaching the Russians, if the Air Force inducts the S-400 air defence missile system,” a senior government official told MyNation.

“The Indian team is expected to brief the Americans on the requirement of the S-400 missiles for India and assure them that there was no way that the data related to the American systems and aircraft are going to be provided or they would reach any third party including the Russians,” the official said.

The S-400 Russian missile system built by the Russians is seen as a game changer by the Air Force. When deployed, the missile system's five regiments would act as a shield against any missile or other aerial attack on the country including the ones from ballistic missiles, and give it an edge over archrivals China and Pakistan.

India’s keenness to acquire the system could be seen from the fact that, despite the Americans threatening to impose sanctions on India under the CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act), Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that India would still go ahead with the acquisition.

India wants to procure the long-range missile systems to tighten its air defence mechanism, particularly along the nearly 4,000-km-long Sino-India border. The missile system, manufactured by Almaz-Antey, has been in service in Russia since 2007.

China was the first foreign buyer to seal a government-to-government deal with Russia in 2014 to procure the lethal missile system. Moscow has already started the delivery of an unknown number of the S-400 missile systems to Beijing.