Russia, India sign weapons deals worth billions

NEW DELHI (AP) — Rus­sia and India signed weapons deals worth bil­lions of dol­lars Mon­day as Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin sought to fur­ther boost ties with an old ally.

Putin and Indian Prime Min­is­ter Man­mo­han Singh hailed coop­er­a­tion between their coun­tries as offi­cials signed a $1.6 bil­lion deal for 42 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets that will be license-built in India from Russ­ian com­po­nents and a $1.3 bil­lion con­tract for the deliv­ery of 71 Mil Mi-17 mil­i­tary helicopters.

“We agreed to fur­ther strengthen the tra­di­tions of close coop­er­a­tion in the mil­i­tary and tech­ni­cal areas,” Putin said after the signing.

Singh said the talks included dis­cus­sions on the secu­rity sit­u­a­tion in the region, includ­ing Afghanistan.

“India and Rus­sia share the objec­tive of a sta­ble, united, demo­c­ra­tic and pros­per­ous Afghanistan, free from extrem­ism,” Singh told reporters after the talks.

Rus­sia and India have shared close ties since the Cold War, when Moscow was a key ally and the prin­ci­pal arms sup­plier to New Delhi.

The ties slack­ened after the col­lapse of the Soviet Union, but grew stronger again after Putin came to power in 2000, seek­ing to revive Moscow’s global clout and restore ties with old allies.

While the vol­ume of Russian-Indian trade has risen six­fold since 2000 and is expected to reach $10 bil­lion this year, the growth has slowed in recent years. And even though India remains the No. 1 cus­tomer for Russia’s arms indus­tries, Moscow has recently lost sev­eral multibillion-dollar con­tracts to West­ern weapons makers.

Rus­sia has main­tained its strong posi­tions in the Indian mar­ket with $30 bil­lion worth of arms con­tracts with India signed in 2000–2010 that envis­aged sup­plies of hun­dreds of fighter jets, mis­siles, tanks and other weapons, a large part of which were license-produced in India. The coun­tries have coop­er­ated on build­ing an advanced fighter plane and a new trans­port air­craft, and have jointly devel­oped a super­sonic cruise mis­sile for the Indian Navy.

But the mil­i­tary coop­er­a­tion has hit snags in recent years, as New Delhi shops increas­ingly for West­ern weapons. The Indi­ans also haven’t been always happy with the qual­ity of Russ­ian weapons and their ris­ing prices.

In one notable exam­ple, in 2004 Rus­sia signed a $1 bil­lion con­tract to refur­bish a Soviet-built air­craft car­rier for the Indian Navy. While the deal called for the ship to be com­mis­sioned in 2008, it is still in a Russ­ian ship­yard and the con­tract price has report­edly soared to $2.3 bil­lion. The tar­get date for the carrier’s com­ple­tion was moved back again this year after it suf­fered major engine prob­lems in sea tri­als. Russ­ian offi­cials now promise to hand it over to India in the end of 2013.

India has also demanded that Rus­sia pay fines for fail­ing to meet terms under a 2006 con­tract for build­ing three frigates for its navy, the third of which is yet to be commissioned.

Rus­sia recently has suf­fered major defeats in com­pe­ti­tion with West­ern rivals in the Indian arms market.

Last year, Rus­sia lost a ten­der to sup­ply the Indian Air Force with 126 new fighter jets worth nearly $11 bil­lion to France’s Das­sault Rafale. And last month, Boe­ing won India’s order for a batch of heavy-lift heli­copters worth $1.4 billion.

Rus­sia has sought to down­play recent defeats of its arms traders, say­ing that other weapons deals with India are under preparation.

As part of its coop­er­a­tion with India, Rus­sia also has built the first reac­tor at the Kudanku­lam nuclear power plant and is build­ing a sec­ond unit there. The project has been delayed by protests by anti-nuclear groups and local residents.

The head of the Russ­ian nuclear cor­po­ra­tion Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, told reporters Mon­day that the reac­tors in Kudanku­lam are the safest in the world, adding that stud­ies have shown that they would have with­stood a dis­as­ter like an earth­quake and tsunami that caused mul­ti­ple melt­downs and radi­a­tion leaks at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan last year. Kiriyenko said Rosatom plans to build more reac­tors in India.

Putin’s visit was sched­uled for late Octo­ber, but was delayed as the Russ­ian leader sus­pended for­eign travel for about two months. The Krem­lin acknowl­edged that he was suf­fer­ing from a mus­cle pulled dur­ing judo train­ing. Putin resumed active travel ear­lier this month, mak­ing sev­eral for­eign trips.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Dec 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.