India to buy Russian bombs, Israeli missiles
NEW DELHI : India on Tuesday cleared two proposals to buy smart bombs from Russia and surface-to-air missiles from Israel to strengthen the capabilities of its Air Force and Navy.
Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman approved the purchase of 240 bombs from Russia’ s Rosoboronexport to scale up the offensive capabilities of the IAF and 131 Barak missiles from Israel’s Rafael Advance Defence Systems Ltd for the Navy, a government spokesperson said.
Ros ob or on export is a Russian state entity responsible for exporting military products.
The bombs will cost ~1,254 crore and the missile deal will be worth ~460 crore, the spokesperson said. He said the bomb pur- chase would address the deficiency of precision guided munitions besides enhancing the IA F’ s offensive capabilities.
The Barak missiles are being bought by invoking an ‘option clause’ that was part of a previous contract.
The naval surface-to-air missile system is designed to protect warships from anti-ship missiles.
India inked deals worth $2 billion with Israel in April 2017 for advanced surface-to-air missile systems to provide the military with the capability to shoot down hostile warplanes and missiles.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will provide the Indian Army with advanced mediumrange surface-to-air missile systems as part of the deal. IAI said the deal, cleared in February, was the single largest contract in Israel’s defence industry history.