India and Russia signed a $5.4 billion S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile deal on Friday during an annual bilateral meet in New Delhi, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitriy Peskov said.

Iran press/ Asia newsRussia and India have agreed to develop landmark projects in space. New Delhi also requested Moscow to cooperate in its first-ever mission to send a man into space which is scheduled for 2022, RT reported.

The deal, signed on Friday, concerns a manned space program and the development of cooperation in the sphere of navigation systems, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin revealed.

India is creating its own navigation system, like GPS or Russian GLONASS. The new agreement implies that an Indian monitoring station for such a system will be built near the Russian city of Novosibirsk in Siberia.

New Delhi also asked Moscow for help with its own space launch project in 2022. The ambitious deadline – 2022 – was set earlier by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wanted to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Indian independence from British colonial rule. 

The Gaganyaan spacecraft, designed to carry three people, will be placed in a low earth orbit of 300-400 km (186-248 miles).So far, Rakesh Sharma remains the only Indian to travel to space. He flew aboard the Soviet Soyuz rocket to the Salyut orbital station in 1984. Independently, the country which launched many unmanned missions didn’t send a man into space.

President Putin and PM Modi are set to sign over 20 documents in all. Later on Friday, they signed the hugely-anticipated S-400 Triumf  deal. India agreed to buy the most sophisticated Russian air defense system available on the market for more than $5 billion.

Ambitious S-400 contract with Russia

Military cooperation between Russia and India has been heightened after New Delhi resisted pressure from the US and decided to purchase the S-400 Triumf complexes from Russia. The $5-billion deal to purchase the most sophisticated Russian aerial-defense system available on the market will be signed during Putin's visit to India, according to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. 

Washington has long threatened sanctions against any nation that buys advanced weapon systems from Russia. By approving the contract, the Indian government has defied the US Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, also known as CAATSA on Russia. 

The Russian S-400s are currently the best complexes in their class. India has "healthy pragmatism," and it doesn't want "to somehow annoy" Washington by purchasing them, Aleksey Martynov, a director of the International Institute of the Newly Established States group, told RT. 

"When it comes to choosing between security and any other issues, any normal country will make a choice in favor of security. For this reason, Turkey decided to purchase the S-400s from Russia, despite all the threats and sanctions from the US, this is an absolutely logical choice," he explained.

Longtime business partners

Developing close relations with India, a member of BRICS, remains one of Moscow's top foreign-policy priorities. Over the last several years, Indian companies have invested billions in strategic Russian projects including Vankorneft and Taas-Yuryakh.

Education, science, and a mutual transfer of technologies are key elements of building trust between the longtime partners, which are keen to diversify mutual trade. Russia and India have had close political and military ties since the days of Soviet-Indian partnership, and India is now a booming market for Russia's most-successful industries.

Earlier in September, the board of directors of BRICS' New Development Bank (NDB) approved three infrastructure and sustainable development projects in India and Russia with loans aggregating $825 million. 

Vladimir Putin is on  a two-day visit  to India   during which he has  met PM Narendra Modi. All eyes is on the $5-billion deal of   purchasing    S-400s from Russia, which Delhi approved in defiance of a US threat of sanctions.Russian President  Vladimir Putin  arrived in India on Thursday October 4,2018. 

The S-400 Triumf system is a next-generation mobile air defense system, which is capable of destroying aerial targets at an extremely long range of up to 400 kilometers (almost 250 miles).

 

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