A MiG 29 fleet at an Indian Air Force station

New Delhi, March 7: India today put its money where its mouth is in “valuing” Russia’s friendship and gifted to Moscow’s newly-elected President Dmitry Medvedev a nearly Rs 4,000-crore order to upgrade frontline fighter aircraft.

Russia has swung the deal despite the pro-West atmospherics from the security establishment and its recent vocal exasperation with supplies of Russian military hardware.

Russian aircraft corporation MiG will modernise five squadrons — about 90 — MiG 29 air superiority fighters in the Indian Air Force fleet after the contract, estimated to be upwards of $950 million but less than a billion dollars, was signed this evening.

The gift to Moscow flies in the face of the defence establishment’s irritation with Russia over the delay in the upgradation and delivery of the $1.5-billion Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier and supplies of other equipment for the Indian armed forces.

Russia has demanded an additional $1.2 billion above the contracted amount for the Gorshkov, a development that had the navy chief, Admiral Sureesh Mehta, publicly doubting the future of India-Russia relations.

“We in India greatly value our longstanding and time tested ties with Russia,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had written in a congratulatory note to Medvedev earlier this week. The letter was released today.

The Prime Minister said India-Russia ties “are based on a strong foundation of deep mutual trust, confidence and understanding. I look forward to working together with Your Excellency to further strengthen the strategic partnership between our two countries.”

As a consequence of today’s deal, RAC MiG will upgrade the entire fleet of the MiG 29s. (The MiG 29s are not to be confused with the MiG 21s, which are far less capable and older but form a bulk of the IAF’s combat aircraft fleet).

The IAF is also in talks with Dassault Aviation of France to upgrade its fleet of about 52 Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft. The talks are locked in price negotiations with Dassault understood to have quoted more than a billion dollars.

An RAC MiG spokesperson said the upgrade would extend the service life of the MiG 29s to 3,500 flight hours and 40 years. It is not clear if the contract has a price escalation clause — a proviso that was not negotiated for the Gorshkov carrier — with the result that the Russians could demand more than a billion dollars four years after the deal.

The MiG spokesperson said the MiG 29s would now have an avionics suite that featured in the ship-borne MiG 29K/KUB fighter aircraft.

IAF sources said the upgrade will be partly done at the base repair depot in Nashik but also in Russia. To begin with, RAC MiG will upgrade and flight-test the first six aircraft in Russia.

MiG 29s are air superiority fighters primarily intended to intercept aerial targets. The modernisation package includes the Zhuk-ME radar, an advanced onboard computing complex, a new weapons control system, an optromic station based on space technologies and colour multifunctional displays in the cockpit.

The MiG spokesperson said the contract includes an offsets (re-investment) clause of 30 per cent of the value of the order (about Rs 1,200 crore).

Today’s deal also enthused RAC MiG to pitch its bid for an estimated $10.2-billion order for 126 multi-role combat aircraft — for which it is in competition with five other companies — higher.