AK Antony arrives in Russia for INS Vikramaditya handover

SEVERODVINSK: Defence Minister AK Antony arrived here today for the commissioning of aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya tomorrow at Russia's nuclear submarine building centre Sevmash Shipyard.

Antony, accompanied by a high-level delegation including Defence Secretary R K Mathur and other officials, arrived on a four-day visit to the country. Naval chief Admiral D K Joshi is already here.

The Minister will also co-chair the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu on Monday.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and senior government and naval officials of the two countries are also scheduled to attend the ceremony for handing over the Kiev class carrier (formerly called Admiral Gorshkov) retrofitted and upgraded at a cost of USD 2.3 billion.

After almost nine years of negotiations, the initial USD 1.5 billion contract for retrofitting the aircraft carrier and buying 16 MiG-29K, K/UB deck-based fighters was signed in 2004.