NEW DELHI, 30 November 2021, (TON): From clinching deals on Kalashnikov assault rifles and very-short range air defence missile systems (VSHORADS) to a military logistics pact, upgraded combat exercises and more joint projects, Russia is now looking to challenge the US as India’s pre-eminent strategic partner and defence supplier.

Ahead of the annual Modi-Putin summit here on December 6, coinciding with the inaugural two-plus-two dialogue between their foreign and defence ministers, hectic negotiations are currently underway to put finishing touches on a wide-ranging strategic-defence agenda.

While there is now deep India-US strategic congruence across the spectrum, with New Delhi also inking defence deals worth over $21 billion with Washington since 2007, Russia wants to assert its long-standing special strategic partnership with India.

Russia, incidentally, has notched up military sales worth well over $65 billion to India since the early-1960s.

Russia is also apprehensive about India’s determined push for self-reliance in defence production. But it can take heart that the decks have finally been cleared for the long-pending Rs 5,124 crore project to manufacture over six lakh AK-203 Kalashnikov rifles at Korwa ordnance factory in Amethi district of UP, even as the $1.5 billion deal for India to acquire VSHORADS from Russia is also now in the “final stages”, said sources.

India also wants to induct the Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine called Chakra-III, under the $3 billion 10-year lease for it in March 2019, by 2025-2026.