India's Reliance, Russian Almaz-Antey in S-400 Missile Partnership

India’s Reliance Defense announced that it has entered into a manufacturing and maintenance partnership with Russian Almaz-Antey, manufacturer of the S-400 air defense missile system.

The agreement will focus on radars and automated control systems as areas of partnership for the air defense missile systems, S-400 as well as offset policies of the Indian Ministry of Defense, Reliance said in a statement Thursday.

“Working with Reliance Defence will help us develop new directions for both Companies to address future requirements of the Indian Armed Forces," Vice-Chairman of AlmazAntey V F Medovnikov said. 

Reliance Defence Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure Limited.

Under India’s offsets policy, foreign defense contractors are required to invest a percentage of the value of any deal in India to build an industrial base to reduce defense imports.

The Indian Defense Acquisition Council earlier this month cleared the purchase of five S-400 missile systems for an approximate $6 billion.

S-400 is an anti-aircraft system and comes with a mobile launcher and a threat detection radar/command center. The deal also includes purchase of about 6,000 missiles from Russia.