Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that since most of India’s military assets are sourced from Russia and many more purchase deals are in the pipeline, the US sanctions against Russia would not be impacting "this particular characteristic of India-Russia defense cooperation," Sputnik reported.

"I like to make it clear here that in all our engagements with the US, we have very clearly explained how India and Russia's defense cooperation has been going on for a very long time," Sitharaman said at an annual press conference in New Delhi.

She made the remarks in response to a media query pertaining to the US advising India to not go ahead with purchasing S-400 air defense systems from Russia.

"The S-400 deal has been on for a very long time and we have reached the final stage of negotiations. That explains it all," Sitharaman said.