AFP,
MOSCOW: Russia has made a grand return to the arms market with a massive sale to India that analysts say underscores Moscow's reliance on cheap Soviet-era technology as it tries to challenge the richer military whizzes in the West.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced in New Delhi on Monday that Moscow — after about a decade of negotiations — has been able to sell the 44,570-tonne Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier along with 28 MiG-29K maritime fighter jets for some 1.5 billion dollars.
The news has been heralded on Russian state television as something of a military victory. It is one of the largest single contracts ever signed by Moscow — but one that also indirectly highlights Russia's post-Soviet weakness.
First there is the actual question of money.
India will not accept or pay for Gorshkov until 2008 because the 25-year-old carrier belongs to an earlier generation of crafts with a short landing strip that must still be expanded for it to fit modern planes.
And the sale demonstrates in part that Russia is still clinging on to its Soviet-era markets — primarily India and China — while being unable to expand into Europe or other continents.
Analysts say that this is partly due to the fact that Russia has so far failed to make any major investments in research and development despite a string of such promises by various defense officials.
Yet Russia — perhaps inexplicably — is steadily expanding its arms trade in a policy that has been lobbied for heavily by President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent.
A post-Soviet record of 4.8 billion dollars in arms contracts were signed in 2002, and 2003 was supposed to be even richer for the Russian military industry.
Analysts say this is in part due to the fact that countries like India and China are so reliant on Russian equipment — which tends to break down — that they have no choice but to purchase spare parts from Moscow.
But India has now bought an entire aircraft carrier in what some analysts here call an unprecedented deal that proves that cheaper often proves better on the international arms market.
“This is a great accomplishment for the Russian military. With additional deliveries, this contract can be worth up to three billion dollars,” said military analyst Konstantin Makiyenko of the Center for Analysis, Strategy and Technology.
“This can give an impetus to the development of the Russian aviation industry.
“This is the most expensive contract for a single ship in the history of military sales,” he said.
Other analysts said Russia was focused — perhaps too much — on regaining its old Soviet-era markets without investing in new technologies that would let it compete with the West.
“I think that this is part of our expanding campaign to regain the markets we had in the Soviet era,” said Yevgeny Volk, Moscow office director of the US-based Heritage Foundation.
“The other problem is that many of our products are out of date. But then, they remain cheap.
“Right now Russia is trying to diversify its market and move into southeast Asia, Malaysia, Thailand. But this is only a start.”
Some analysts even questioned if the sale of Gorshkov — a rusting craft that has been decommissioned and inevitably turned into a symbol of Russia's post-Soviet military collapse — will ever come through.
“I am not sure that this contract will work because this something of a first — we have never made such sales before,” said independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
“We still have to modernize the carrier and will only get paid if we do. And I am not sure that this will ever happen, with our military budget.”
