Indian Navy's delegation inspects guided missile frigates in Russi

Moscow, Nov 25 (UNI) A delegation of the Indian Navy, led by Deputy Chief of the naval staff Vice-Admiral Raman P Suthan, visited the Yantar shipyard in Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad to inspect the construction of three Krivak class guided missile frigates for India.

''India's Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Adm Raman P Suthan, was satisfied with the pace and the quality of the construction,'' the shipyard's spokesman Sergei Mikhailov said today.

''He expressed the hope that the future work will be carried out at the same high standard,'' he told RIA Novosti.

The Krivak-class frigate has deadweight of 4,000 metric tons and a speed of 30 knots. It is capable of accomplishing a wide range of maritime missions, primarily hunting down and destroying large surface ships and submarines.

India and Russia signed the 1.6 billion dollar contract for the construction of an additional three Project 11356 Krivak IV-class guided missile frigates for the Indian Navy in July, 2006.

The final vessel is due to be delivered to India by 2011-12. All of the frigates would be armed each with eight BrahMos supersonic anti-ship cruise missile system instead of the Club-N/3M54TE missile system, which was installed on previous frigates.

Russia earlier built three Krivak-class frigates - INS Talwar, INS Trishul and INS Tabar - for India.

Recently, leading Russian business daily Kommersant reported that Russian state arms exports agency Rosoboronexport was conducting negotiations with India to construct three more 11356 Krivak class frigates worth 1.7 billion dollars.

Russia's Severnaya Verf shipyard is expected to be chosen as the main implementer of the contract, it said.

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