The Russian-Indian intergovernmental agreement on the creation of a fifth-generation fighter based on the Russian Su-57 vehicle is being implemented by the parties at agreed stages and terms, a representative of Rosoboronexport told Vedomosti. Last week, the US portal Defensenews, referring to a source in the Indian Air Force, said that the Indian military were going to abandon this program with an estimated cost of $ 10 billion, since the aircraft being developed could not achieve the same characteristics as the fifth-generation F-35 American fighter .

The FGFA fighter development agreement was signed in 2010, after which the parties entered into and executed a preliminary design contract worth about $ 200 million. But the contract for full-scale development work to create the Indian version of the Su-57 has not yet been concluded. The reason is the high costs of the Indian Air Force's purchasing budget for the purchase of 36 French Rafale fighters for 8 billion euros and the desire to hold a new tender for the purchase of single-engined fighters, explains expert of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Konstantin Makienko. He hopes that India will remain in the project: the purchase of the F-35 will cost more, tightly tie India to the US military machine and, most importantly, the Americans will not go on what is planned in the FGFA project - the transfer of competences in aircraft design.

Almost simultaneously last week Rosoboronexport withdrew from the tender of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of India for the purchase of 20,000 rifles - according to its representative, the company is ready to participate "only in fair tenders". The tender conditions were specially drawn up for the obsolete Soviet modification of the Kalashnikov assault rifle of Bulgarian production and it has all the signs of corruption, Makienko agrees.

At the same time, a large package of contracts for the supply of a number of armaments to India, including 40 Mi-17 helicopters, six S-400 air defense missile systems, and two frigates of the 11356 project (India will separately buy them in Ukraine), the lease of the nuclear submarine of the project 971 for a total of more than $ 6 billion, says a man in Rostekh. A contract for the licensed production of Ka-226 helicopters in India is also close to signing. These agreements were agreed at the interstate level a year ago during Vladimir Putin's visit to India, and most of the contracts were approved by the Indian government authorities, Vedomosti interlocutor said.