Gorschkov at sea

Earlier this month — as reported in this newspaper — the navy chief had argued that the Government of India must not renegotiate the price of the aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorschkov, which India is acquiring from the Russians. The Russians are seeking $1.2 billion more for it. The issue is obviously a foreign policy matter, but what is often forgotten is the history of this deal, as indeed Indo-Russian naval ties.

Admiral Gorschkov, known as the father of the Soviet navy, was its chief for 21 years. He gave a great deal of his time to meeting the requirements of the growing Indian navy over two decades. On his third visit to India, meeting the third Indian naval chief, he is reported to have quipped, “Can’t you people find a chief you get on with, and hang on to him?” The aircraft carrier named after Gorschkov, to be renamed the Vikramaditya, is now the centre of an unpleasant controversy and a standing disgrace to the memory of both Gorschkov and the great relationship between the two navies. But all the unpleasant clapping now comes from the Russian side, and the arrogance of Putin’s new government. Clearly, the days of the warmth between the two services — and quite possibly between the two countries — appear to be fast declining.

When the Soviet Government collapsed, the body entrusted with representing Moscow in negotiating foreign sales — the General Engineering Department — was also wound up, to be replaced by the Rosboron (Russian Defence) Export. Contracts are signed between the GoI (MoD) and Rosboron Export, the holding-cum-trading company which creams off 15 per cent of the contract price between the buyer and the actual seller, otherwise called the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). On a few occasions when Indian officers have met the OEM representatives, tales of exorbitant add-on costs have emerged, as well as the inability of OEMs to give the customer a fair deal without the rapacious intervention of Rosboron. In the murky world of defence deals, the relationship between Rosboron and senior leaders in the Kremlin is discussed as hugely important bits of strategic information to be exploited in deal-making.

Today, the yard where the Vikramaditya/Gorschkov is being refitted — the Severomash in Severodvinsk — claims that the cost of refitting the Gorschkov has escalated from $700 million agreed price to about $1.3 billion. But that is not the real story. Any flat buyer who has been cheated by a builder will be familiar with this one. After paying 50 per cent of the flat price, the owner goes to see his flat, sees nothing on the ground, and is told that unless he pays 75 per cent of costs and a 50 per cent escalation, the flat construction won’t even start. The Gorschkov story is one such episode. The great mystery, of course, is whether the managers of Severomash, normally an inoffensive, hard-working lot in a remote shipyard, are doing this scam entirely on their own, or it is encouraged and abetted from Moscow.

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