Russian submarine ‘Ufa’ received a warm welcome as it docked at the Kochi port in south Indian state of Kerala on October 22, 2024. The development interestingly coincides with the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Russia who landed in Kazan, a city southwest of Russia on Tuesday. The prime minister is in Russia to attend the 16th BRICS Summit.
The 16th annual 2024 BRICS summit started on Tuesday in Kazan, Russia, and will go on till October 24, 2024. BRICS consists of the namesake five countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
This year’s BRICS will be the first meeting for its new members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
The summit is expected to address issues concerning climate change, economic cooperation, building resilient supply chains, promoting cultural and people to people connect, among others.
Meanwhile, the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet that arrived at the port of Kochi, carried out extensive combat training sessions and conducted day-to-day operations at sea.
Experts believe that these exchanges and visits reflect the deepening cooperation between the Indian and Russian navies as they serve as a testament to the enduring partnership between the two countries.
The fleet that has arrived India, includes the diesel-electric submarine Ufa and the rescue tug Alatau.
This, however, is not the first time Russian ships have arrived in Kochi. In August also the Russian warships, including the missile cruiser Varyag and the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov from the Russian Pacific Fleet, had docked at Kochi during their long-distance mission.
In the field of defence .India has longstanding and wide-ranging cooperation with Russia.
Both countries participate in bilateral and multilateral military exercises across the three services. The bilateral exercise INDRA was last held in 2021. They also participate in multilateral exercises such as Vostok 2022 held in September 2022 in Russia.
India-Russia military technical cooperation has evolved over time from a buyer-seller framework to one involving joint research and development, co-development and joint production of advanced defence technology and systems.
Other than defence, the two countries are also expected to boost innovation-related engagements and focus on commercialization of technologies and full-cycle support for joint projects of economic and societal impact.
India and Russia are also working together on basic sciences, materials science, mathematics and cutting-edge areas like India’s manned spaceflight program (Gaganyaan), nanotechnologies and quantum computing.
