U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, speaking in India, evaded a direct reply to a question on whether India’s deal to purchase the Russian-made S-400 defense system would pose a problem for the India-U.S. relationship and only said sanctions were not on the table as the weapon system had not been delivered to India. “We have countries that we work with from time to time that have Soviet or ... Russian equipment that they’ve acquired over the years and we certainly urge all our allies and our partners to move away from Soviet or Russian equipment ... and really avoid any kind of acquisition that would trigger sanctions on our behalf.”
“There’s been no delivery of a S-400 system and so that conversation, that issue of sanctions is not one that’s been discussed but we did address with the minister of defense the issue of the S-400,” he further said.