Srinivas
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How strong are the ties that bind Russia and India?
Russian leaders come to India for a few hours and go back with defence deals worth billions. Much like last year, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was in India on Monday for less than 24 hours and the two nations ended up signing deals worth $4 billion. Russias role is indeed significant with the two nations jointly developing fifth-generation fighter aircraft and multirole transport aircrafts over the next decade. These are flagship Indo-Russian projects, building on the success of the Brahmos cruise missile programme as a model.
Yet this defence partnership is not entirely free of wrinkles. There is the issue of inordinate delays in the delivery of Russian defence systems, which result in considerable cost escalation. India is paying $2.34 billion for the delivery of the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, now finalised for 2013, compared to the original $974 million in 2004. India was also supposed to receive an Akula II nuclear-powered submarine in 2009, its delivery was postponed to 2011.
After the Cold War, many in India continued to rely on Russia as an ally in resisting the unipolar world order. The most visible manifestation of this tendency was an attempt to carve out a Russia-China-India strategic triangle. But as every state in the proposed triangle depended on the US to further its own interests, the project never moved beyond platitudinous rhetoric..........
How strong are the ties that bind Russia and India? - Analysis - DNA