NEW DELHI ¨C At least half a dozen executives from top Indian arms makers, including Adani Defense and Bharat Forge, attended rare meetings in Russia this year to discuss potential joint ventures, three people familiar with the matter said.

The meetings took place during the first visit of India¡¯s defense business leaders to Russia since Moscow¡¯s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The visit by the defense business leaders have not previously been reported.

The Indian government is seeking to reorient its decades-old defense ties with Russia to focus on the joint development of weapons.

Any potential collaboration with Russia risks setting back plans by Indian defense firms to jointly develop Western arms as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi¡¯s push to make India, one of the world¡¯s biggest arms importers, a global manufacturing hub.

Western diplomats have previously said that a key obstacle to the transfer of sensitive military technology to India is its defense ties with Russia and the vast amount of Russian-origin arms used by the Indian military, totaling about 36%.

The talks in Moscow were held on the sidelines of a visit by an Indian defense-industrial delegation on Oct. 29-30, headed by India¡¯s Defence Production Secretary Sanjeev Kumar, that was aimed at laying the ground for Russian President Vladimir Putin¡¯s visit to India on Dec. 4-5.

Spokespeople for Adani Group and Bharat Forge denied that executives from any of their companies attended the meetings. India¡¯s defense ministry and the other firms cited by the sources did not respond to requests for comment.

The meetings discussed the potential for the manufacturing of spares for Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jet, and other Russian-origin air defense and weapon systems, as well as a Russian proposal to set up production units in India for the development of equipment that could potentially also be exported to Moscow, said two of the sources and another industry executive.

They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

Russia has been India¡¯s top arms supplier for decades, and during Putin¡¯s visit, the two sides said they had agreed to reorient their partnership ¡°to joint research and development, co-development and co-production of advanced defense technology and systems¡± to support India¡¯s self-reliance in defense.

A broad delegation of representatives from defense units of Indian conglomerates, state-owned firms, as well as startups involved in the development of drones and artificial intelligence for military use attended the meetings, the sources said.

An executive at engineering conglomerate Kalyani Group¡¯s Bharat Forge, which makes components for missiles and artillery guns, attended the meetings as part of efforts to source or jointly develop components for Russian-origin tanks and aircraft as well as to explore potential future collaboration on helicopters, two of...