Posted on 09/10/2015 4:08:25 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
NIZHYNY TAGIL: Pakistan and Russia are in talks about the delivery of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and previously agreed upon delivery of Mi-35M helicopters, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister (FM) Sergei Ryabkov said, Sputnik reported.
Earlier this year, a draft contract for the delivery of four Mi-35M 'Hind E' combat helicopters was sent to Pakistan from Russia, a source in the Russian military and technical cooperation was quoted by the Russian news agency TASS.
Increasing military cooperation between Islamabad and Moscow would not negatively impact Russia's ties with India, Ryabkov said, adding that Pak-Russia ties were improving in other sectors as well ─ including energy.
The Russian Deputy FM Ryabkov referred to Pakistan as Russia's closest partner and said, "I do not think that the contacts under discussion will cause jealousy on the part of any of the two sides."
The twin-engine Su-35 is a fourth generation multi-role combat aircraft which also incorporates technology from fifth generation jets, according to details available on the Sukhoi company's website. It is also said to be more agile as compared to previous models.
Pakistan and Russia had signed a bilateral defence cooperation agreement aimed at strengthening military-to-military relations in November last year. The deal had to be followed by another ‘technical cooperation agreement’ to pave the way for sale of defence equipment to Pakistan.
I'm sure India will be thrilled to be flying against SU-35s.
Or do they really think the Pakis will buy more than the IAF/IA/IN ever will?
Very hard to predict how this pans out! India-Russia ties have been on the “cool” mode since the mid-90s following Russia reaching out to China.
Even if the PAK-FA stays at the original levels (200 aircraft for India), will Russia stop ties with China? Russia is indirectly arming Pakistan with its ties to Beijing. India has only one friend it can truly rely on: itself.
True . And that is why the insistence on making all possible defence stuff in India is the most important thing this Gov’t has done.
By itself, Make-in-India won’t have the desired results (beyond licensed production) unless there are MASSIVE changes in FDI rules in defense and related sectors and land acquisition rules.
The FDI rules will be changed as things go along. A lot of rule changes will be on a need based basis. The process will be slow but will happen.
While it could have been handled better, I don’t blame Modi for the land acquisition problem. Far too many projects have floundered due to State-level bungling by various parties (Enron-Nandigram-POSCO etc.). If I were a foreign investor, I would expect the federal government to push reforms regarding land.
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