Peter Suciu
Last month, during an Oval Office meeting between U.S. president Donald Trump and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, Trump suggested closer ties between the two countries could result in the U.S. offering the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II to New Delhi. While such a deal likely seems complicated to imagine ever being completed, Moscow has also repeatedly tried to entice India into adopting the Sukhoi Su-57, as the world’s most populous nation is Russia’s most significant customer of military hardware.
However, even as New Delhi may continue to seek a fifth-generation fighter, last week, it announced it had concluded a deal with France to purchase more than two dozen Dassault Rafale omnivore fighters for the Indian Navy.
The Rafale M aircraft will replace the Indian Navy’s aging Russian-made Mikoyan MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB trainers, the carrier version of the MiG-29M, which India received nearly two decades ago.
The Russian-made all-weather multirole fighters are “currently operated by the [Indian] Navy as part of the 300 Squadron White Tigers and 303 Squadron Black Panthers”. In contrast, “the new fighters will operate from the aircraft carriers INS Vikrant and INS Vikramaditya.”
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