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The outcome of the last week’s Indian delegation’s visit to Moscow led by Indian defence secretary Vijay Singh has been a fruitful one since Russia has marginally succumbed to Indian demands of better military supplies and reasonable pricing of ongoing Indo-Russian defence projects. The meeting of the India-Russia High-Level Monitoring Committee took place in Moscow and the Russian side was led by the Director-General of Military Services, General Dimitriev.
Russia was also criticized by defence minister A.K. Antony last week at a public ceremony in the presence of the Russian ambassador. The defence minister expressed his “anguish” at the frequent delays in the delivery of hardware. India is increasingly looking at other European and American companies due to the poor performance by Russia in terms of defence supplies.
In the latest meeting, Russia has indicated that it is willing to compromise on the matter of the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and that a downward revision is likely. A firm price will be contracted again by July 2009. Last week, India coughed up another $102 million for the carrier, making the grand total of $602 million.
Russia had demanded an additional $2 billion for refurbishing the carrier after the vessel was contracted by India in 2004 for $964 million. India was willing to pay a total of $2.2 billion but Moscow kept insisting on a total of $2.9 billion.
The delivery of the carrier, being negotiated since 1997, has also been delayed due to erratic price inflation. The carrier is not likely to be with the Indian Navy before the end of 2012.
Russia is getting increasingly cautious of any further disruption of military ties with India since India will not hesitate in sourcing its defence equipment from other countries. Russia is by far the largest supplier of military equipment to India, and nearly 65 per cent of the Indian armed forces’ hardware is of Russian or Soviet origin. Annual military purchases from Russia total between $3 to $4 billion.
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