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Russia locks up Indian combat-aircraft market for decades to come
By MARTIN SIEFF
UPI Senior News Analyst
April 22, 2009

WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- Russia has secured its position as the supplier of military aircraft to India for the first quarter of the 21st century, a highly influential Moscow think tank has concluded.

India will continue to buy most of its combat aircraft from Russia for at least the next 15 years because of contracts that have already been concluded and the further deals that are almost certain to develop out of them, the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies concluded in a report titled "The Forecast for Combat Aircraft Deliveries to India," RIA Novosti reported Monday.

The report said the Indian government had already committed to purchasing as many as 90 Sukhoi Su-30MKI combat fighters and is likely to buy more, or possibly extra Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29K aircraft.

The sales are likely to become even more impressive. Russia is also seeking to persuade India to buy 126 new MiG-35 Fulcrum multi-role combat fighters worth $10.6 billion. New Delhi has launched an international tender to compete for the contract, but the MiG-35 is widely tipped as the favorite.

RIA Novosti also noted that the MiG-35 would benefit from the long and still growing track record of close technical cooperation in military projects between Russia and India. The Indians are very pleased with the BrahMos Indian-Russian joint company that has developed a new Mach 2.8 supersonic cruise missile for the Indian armed forces. The missile is already in operational use with the Indian army and navy, and an air-launched cruise missile version for the Indian air force is also far advanced.

The report also noted that in March 2008, the Kremlin signed another deal with the Indian Defense Ministry to modernize some 70 MiG-29 fighters that had been operated by the Indian air force since the 1980s. Russia is also helping India to design its own new fifth-generation fighter.

Major aerospace companies from around the world are seeking orders from New Delhi to modernize and replace many of India's existing fleet of mostly Soviet-built combat aircraft, which still in large part relies on old MiG-21s, the report said.

The Republican Bush administration courted India as a major strategic partner during its eight years in office, but during all that time successive Indian governments led by both the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party and the center-left UPA-Congress alignment refused to give major U.S. defense contractors any significant contracts and effectively froze them out of air force procurement deals while continuing to award ever larger ones to Russia.

Since U.S. President Barack Obama took office, U.S.-Indian relations have deteriorated in significant part because of Indian fears that Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke want to take a role in negotiating the future of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, an issue India regards as a purely internal affair.

But with the Su-30 issue, wonder how things will turn out.