NEW DELHI: India’s expansive strategic partnership with Russia was reinforced on Tuesday, with defence minister Rajnath Singh telling President Vladimir Putin that their “friendship is higher than the highest mountain and deeper than the deepest ocean”, while the two countries also inked a wide-ranging protocol on defence cooperation in “ongoing and prospective areas”.
In his almost hour long meeting with Putin at the Kremlin, Singh also stressed that India “has always stood by its Russian friends and will continue to do so in the future”, underlining the fine balance India has struck between Russia and the US-led western countries even during the ongoing Ukraine war.
“Putin and Singh were of the view that the bilateral partnership holds immense potential and their combined efforts will pave the way for remarkable outcomes,” an Indian official said.
There were, of course, several concerns raised by the Indian delegation during the 21st India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Military-Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-M&MTC) meeting, which was co-chaired by Singh and his Russian counterpart Andrey Belousov.
Sources said New Delhi asked Moscow to speed up deliveries of the two remaining squadrons of the S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems as well as set up a repair and overhaul facility for them in India, while also ensuring timely deliveries, maintenance support and supply of spares for several other weapon systems and platforms, ranging from Sukhoi-30MKI fighters to T-90S main-battle tanks.
Moscow was also asked to give more transfer of technology (ToT) to improve the “maintenance and sustenance” of the IAF’s existing fleet of 259 Sukhoi jets, the bulk of them produced by Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) under licence from Russia for over $12 billion.
With Singh asking Russian defence industries to “explore new opportunities” to enhance their participation in `Make in India’ projects, Belousov said the operationalisation of the military technical cooperation agreement for 2021-31 will give the necessary impetus to such endeavours.
Dubbing the ongoing joint production of AK-203Kalashnikov assault rifles at the Korwa ordnance factory in Amethi district of UP a “resounding success”, Singh also told Belousov that Russia must expand the production of such products in India and explore exporting them to other countries, the sources said.
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has led to a major delay in the delivery of the S-400 missile systems to India, which were contracted under the $5.43 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) contract in 2018.
IAF has deployed the first three S-400 squadrons, which can detect and destroy hostile strategic bombers, jets, spy planes, missiles and drones at a range of 380-km, in north-west and east India to cater for both China and Pakistan, but is likely to get the other two units only by 2026 at the earliest.
On the Sukhoi front, the procurement of another 12 of the jets is now in the pipeline to replace the ones that have crashed over the years. In Sept, the defence ministry had also inked a mega over Rs 26,000 crore contract for the procurement of 240 AL-31FP aero-engines to power the Sukhois, which will be manufactured by the Koraput Division of HAL with help from Russia.
There is also a major indigenous Rs 63,000 crore upgrade plan to make the existing Sukhois much more lethal with advanced radars, avionics, longer-range weapons and multi-sensor fusion to ensure they are capable of air combat for another 30 years, as reported by TOI earlier.
Russia still remains India’s main weapons supplier, accounting for over 36% of its arms imports, though New Delhi has been focussing on enhancing its own domestic defence production. India has also increasingly turned to countries like the US, France and Israel for military hardware and software over the last two decades.
Around 60% of the existing inventory of the Indian armed forces, however, is still of Russian-origin, including fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs and MiG-29s, warships like aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, Talwar and Teg-class frigates and Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, AN-32 medium-lift aircraft and Mi-17 helicopters, among others.
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