Russia, India preparing an agreement for Russian weapons maintenance

Alexander Fomin, the first deputy head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation said that Russia and India are preparing an intergovernmental agreement governing post-service of Russian weapons. However, the possible timing of the agreement has not yet been voiced. At Aero India 2009 show Fomin said “With India we are now in an active form of discussing the draft intergovernmental agreement - not just a contract, namely mezhpravsoglashenie to organize after-sales service of Russian technology. The main purpose of this agreement is to improve the mechanism of service the entire spectrum of military equipment supplied to India in different years". He emphasized that the observed many cases where, once installed in the Indian fighter aircraft MiG-29 non-original parts, with or without the participation of Russian software developers the crash occurred, which, apart from the fact that took the lives of the pilots, have undermined the prestige of Russian warplanes in the eyes of the world community. According to the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, the share of India in the supply of Russian arms abroad is no less than 30%. In 2008, exports of Russian-made weapons have exceeded 8 billion dollars. In 2009, Russia plans to increase the export of weapons by 6% - to 8.5 billion dollars.