Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow valued its ties with countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa and was ready to offer modern weapons to its allies.

Putin used a speech at an arms show near Moscow to boast of Russia’s advanced weapons capabilities and declare its willingness to share technology with like-minded countries.

“(We) are ready to offer our allies the most modern types of weapons, from small arms to armoured vehicles and artillery to combat aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles,” Putin said at the opening ceremony of the “Army-2022” forum near Moscow.

“Almost all of them have been used more than once in real combat operations.”

He was speaking nearly six months into Russia’s war in Ukraine, where Moscow has suffered repeated setbacks and heavy losses.

Western military analysts say the poor performance of Russian troops and weaponry could make its arms exports less attractive to potential buyers, such as India, which relied heavily on its technology.

German gas levy

German households will have to pay almost €500 ($509.65) more a year for gas after a levy was set to help utilities cover the cost of replacing Russian supplies, piling pressure on Berlin to come up with further relief measures for the public.

Trading Hub Europe, the German gas market operator, said it had set the charge at 2.419 euro cents per kilowatt hour (kWH) on Monday.

The levy, introduced by Germany in a bid to help Uniper and other importers cope with soaring prices, will be imposed from October 1 and remain in place until April 2024.

For an average family of four, the charge will amount to an additional annual cost of around €480 or an increase of about 13 per cent on the Verivox price comparison platform’s calculation of an average gas bill of €3,568 based on usage of 20,000 kWh/year.

The industry will also be subject to the levy, with German steel group WV Stahl saying it would add around another 500 million euros a year to the sector’s energy bills, on top of €7 billion in extra costs already attributed to high energy prices.