Rajnath meets Putin, affirms India will stand by Russia | India News – Times of India

Vladimir Putin and Rajnath Singh (R)

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.
However, there were 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 to improve the “maintenance and sustenance” of the IAF’s existing fleet of 259 Sukhoi jets, the bulk of them produced by 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 would give the necessary impetus to such endeavours.
Dubbing the joint production of AK-203 assault rifles at the Korwa ordnance factory in UP a “resounding success”, Singh told Belousov that Russia must expand the production of such products in India and explore exporting them to other countries, the sources said.
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 Indian military’s inventory 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.