Russian President Vladimir Putin will be visiting India on Thursday in a bid to sign deal to sell S-400 missile defense systems, Kremlin has confirmed.

“The president is leaving for India on October 4,” Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, said on Tuesday.

“The key feature of this visit will be the signing of the agreement to deliver S-400 air defense systems,” he said. “The value of the contract will be more than 5 billion dollars.”

India’s highest security authority had approved the 5.43-billion-dollar military deal last month.

The United States has voiced its dissatisfaction with that military procurement. In August, a senior Pentagon official said that the US might impose sanctions against India if the purchase occurred.

Under its current unilateral sanctions against Moscow, Washington could impose bans on third countries if they transact with the Russian defense or intelligence sectors.

The US opposition to India’s military transactions with the US is based on a domestic US bill enacted in 2017 and titled the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA.

Applying that domestic law to other countries is effectively a breach of their sovereignty.

India has, however, signaled it will ask Washington for a special waiver from the sanctions, though a US official last week said there is no guarantee such waivers would be issued.

KD