In News: The US House of Representatives has passed by voice vote a legislative amendment that approves waiver to India against the punitive CAATSA sanctions for its purchase of the S-400 missile defence system from Russia.
Authored and introduced by Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna, the amendment urges the Biden administration to use its authority to provide India with a Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) waiver to help deter aggressors like China.
CAATSA is a tough US law that authorises the US administration to impose sanctionson countries that purchase major defence hardware from Russia in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential elections.
In October 2018, India signed a USD 5 billion deal with Russia to buy five units of the S-400 air defence missile systems.
The US has already imposed sanctions on Turkey under the CAATSA for the purchase of a batch of S-400 missile defence systems from Russia.
S-400 system
It is an upgraded version of the S-300 surface-to-air missile system.
The S-400 is known as Russia’s most advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defence system.
Capable of handling multiple objects: It is capable of simultaneously tracking numerous incoming objects including aircraft, missiles and UAVs in a radius of a few hundred kilometres and launching appropriate missiles to neutralise them.
It is capable of protecting its air defence bubble against rockets, missiles, cruise missiles and even aircraft.
Radars: It has radars that can pick up an incoming object up to a distance of 1,000 kilometres, track several dozen incoming objects simultaneously, distribute the targets to missile systems and ensure a high success rate.
