Source:RIA Novosti
Indian Navy is disappointed with Russia's last- minute cancellation
of joint naval Exercise in the Pacific Ocean in April, Chief of Naval
Staff Admiral Nirmal Verma said.
The Indian Navy task force consisting of three destroyers - INS
Delhi, INS Ranvir, and INS Ranvijay, corvette INS Kirch, and tanker INS
Jyoti called at Pacific Fleet's main base in Vladivostok on April 18-23.
Russia reported the arrival of Indian warships as a friendly visit,
but the Indian side claims the program of the visit originally included
joint drills, which were cancelled by the Russians at the last moment.
"Vladivostok is nearly 5,000 miles away from here [India]. So for us
to plan a deployment of ships all the way there takes a lot of planning
and costs lots of money to deploy ships at such distances," Verma said
in an exclusive interview.
"So to that extent, there was an element of disappointment where exercises were not held at the final stages," he added.
According to the Indian admiral, the Russian authorities explained
that the cancellation was made in view of the incidents that had taken
place in Japan at the time: the double natural disaster and the
following nuclear crisis.
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