By Rahul Bedi
New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS) India’s long-standing military ally Russia has begun engaging it in military exercises it rarely conducted before. This is to counter competition from the United States, Israel and other Western countries in meeting New Delhi’s billowing demand for defence equipment.
Later this week the Indian and Russian Army’s Special Forces, backed by their respective air forces, will for the first time carry out five days of joint anti-terror and search-and-destroy exercises in Russia on the freezing plains of Pskov, southeast of St Petersburg.
The upcoming Indira 07 manoeuvres will duplicate those carried out for the first time by the two armies in October 2005, despite them being close allies during the Cold War decades.
“As an economically resurgent India begins to militarily interact with other countries, a nervous Moscow, anxious to retain its largest defence customer, is seeking increased interaction with Delhi through joint manoeuvres,” retired Lt Gen V K Kapur told IANS.
Over the next decade, military planners anticipate purchases of over $40 billion to replace or upgrade the predominantly Soviet and Russian equipment in service with the Indian military that has reached collective obsolescence.
And with the armed forces increasingly voicing their preference for Western over Russian hardware, Moscow has launched a multi-pronged sales offensive of which joint exercises are a part, Kapur added.
India annually conducts $1,500 million worth of defence business with Russia. Since the 1960s India has acquired Russian military goods worth over $30 billion.
But despite such dealings, a mere handful of Russian service personnel have attended any of India’s many defence training establishments open to and patronized by foreign officers from competing military-industrial establishments.
Indian officials attribute this to the Russian military officers’ lack of fluency in English.
The two navies have also conducted just three rounds of joint exercises since 2003, the most recent being off Russia’s coast earlier this year.
The scarce India-Russia military exercises, however, are in sharp contrast to innumerable multi-service manoeuvres that Delhi has held since the early 1990s with the US, Britain, France and Singapore.
India also conducts frequent naval manoeuvres with almost all Indian Ocean region littoral and most West Asian countries.
It has even carried out two rounds of naval exercises with neigbouring nuclear rival China while its army is scheduled to hold its first ever manoeuvres with the People’s Liberation Army in China in a few weeks time.
Indira 07 will be attended by India’s army chief Genera J J Singh accompanied by senior military officials ahead of Defence Minister A.K. Antony’s October visit to Moscow.
Antony’s visit will be followed by a summit meeting in Moscow between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Vladimir Putin at which several Russian military contracts, beset by delays and cost escalation, are expected to be discussed.
Citing increasing domestic inflation and the declining value of the US dollar, Russia is much to India’s chagrin re-negotiating the cost of the already contracted for 138 multi-role Su30 MkI combat aircraft and the retrofitting of INS Vikramaditya (ex-Admiral Gorshkov), the 39,450 tonne Kiev-class aircraft carrier.
Moscow is also believed to be revaluating the price of 20 MiG29K fighters that are to be part of the refurbished carrier’s air group and the highly secretive lease of at least one Akula class nuclear powered submarine for the Indian Navy (IN).
The IN and the Indian Air Force (IAF) have for years faced recurring and severe product support problems for their Soviet and Russian equipment.
IAF officers said it often took up to two years to obtain combat aircraft spares from Russia and those too at ‘exorbitant’ prices.
This problem is further compounded by the Russian military not using the same equipment which it had sold India. Besides, the quantity required by the IAF is normally small.
Consequently, the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) were unwilling to re-open production lines leading to delays in sourcing. In addition, Russia’s military bureaucracy also operated slowly, further delaying procedures, IAF sources said.
To try to partially resolve these problems, Russia’s RAC-MIG Corporation has agreed to set up a ‘dedicated’ depot for spares for the IAF’s fleet of 67 MiG29 fighters, the first such facility of its kind.
The agreement to establish the bonded warehouse for spares adjoining the IAF’s 11 base repair depot at Nashik in western India was signed at the recently concluded MAKS-2007 air show in Russia last month.
Additionally, it will supply to the Indian avy 16 MiG29K fighters, including four trainers that are being acquired for $ 750 million for INS Vikramaditya.
The navy also has the option to acquire 30 additional MiG29K’s by 2015 for the indigenous aircraft carrier under construction at Kochi and expected to be ready by 2011-12.
Raghvendra Aggarwal, CEO of the newly formed Indo-Russian Aviation Limited who inked the agreement along with Vladimir P Vypryazhkin, RAC-MIG’s deputy director general, said the depot would stock a year’s worth of spares that would be made available within 72 hours.
Earlier, in July 2006 India and Russia formed a joint venture – Rosoboronservice (India) or RoS-I – to provide spares and life-cycle support to the Indian navy’s mainly Soviet and Russian naval assets at “reasonable prices”.
Created through a special fiat by Russian President Vladimir Putin, RoS-I brought together some 22 Russian and former Soviet OEMs and military service providers and the Mumbai-based Krasny Marine Services in western India, towards resolving the recurring problems of product support for the navy that impinged negatively on its operational preparedness.