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The Indian Defence Minister, Rajnath Singh, is to visit Russia’s Kaliningrad shipyard next month where the Indian Navy Stealth Frigate, INS Tushil is currently being built.
The three-day visit will start on December 8, and will include talks with Russian Defence Minister, Andrey Belousov in Moscow. Singh will then travel to the Yantar shipyard located in Kaliningrad on the Baltic sea.
The INS Tushil frigate belongs to the Project 11356 class of frigates. The project’s lead frigate is the Admiral Grigorovich, and were designed in the 2010s, with six warships originally intended to bolster the Russian Navy. However, the project encountered delays due to a break-up of cooperation with Ukraine, which pulled out the project after the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which installed a pro-Western government and officials into Ukraine.
Russia subsequently had to develop alternative power plants to complete three of the vessels, while considering foreign buyers for the other three ships, which were then mothballed. India signed a contract to buy two of them in 2018, with two more to be built using Russian technology at India’s Goa Shipyard Limited.
The Yantar Shipyard previously built three of the six Russia-made Talwar-class frigates currently in service with the Indian Navy, which are similar in design to Russia’s Krivak-class frigates.
The INS Tushil and the INS Tamala, made in Kaliningrad and being prepared for handover to India, use India-specific communication equipment and weapons systems. The second warship is expected to be commissioned in early 2025.
India and Russia have been cooperating in defense for decades. They are engaged in a number of joint production projects, as New Delhi seeks greater reliance on domestic manufacturing to supply its armed forces, and is actively involved in shipbuilding joint ventures with Russia, including nuclear-powered icebreakers.
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