sancho
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Cost will also be a factor though the Russian Amur class submarine is a fair bit cheaper to those offered by HDW plus they may well offer a good chunk of transfer-of-technology in return as well as localized production in Indian shipyards. After the Vikramaditya episode the Russians will be keen to get back on track with the Indian Navy and could offer more carrots to win the deal but I share the view with Sancho we should go for the U216 model based on our requirements which could be jointly produced and marketed for export.
The problem is, the Russians can't offer much more here, since much of their naval development capability is gone since the fall of the Soviet Union and it is highly limited by budget restrictions. That's why they need us for many developments as a partner, or why they now also try to get partnerships with European countries, be it on LHDs, S1000s SSKs, LUH or possibly APCs. India has the unique advantage in the world to not only be a partner for Russian high tech developments, but also of other nations, but we have to push the Europeans more in this direction and that's why we have to use such procurements like MMRCA, LUH, P75 to put more pressure on them, just like we put more pressure on the US, by rejecting their offers, as long as they don't get closer to what we want. India today is in a very good position to negotiate, but we don't use this advantage to the mas so far.