NEW DELHI. April 10 (Interfax-AVN) - India buys 70% of the defense hardware it imports in Russia and thus regards the country as its number one partner in arms trade, Bharat Verma, a leading Indian defense expert, editor of the Indian Defense Review and co-chairman of the Indian-Russian forum on security, told Interfax-Military News Agency on Wednesday.
"This system cannot be changed within 10, 12 or 15 years even if we wanted, which India does not," he said.
Verma praised reliability of the Russian weapons.
"We have no doubts that the T-90 tank purchased from Russia is the best asset at present. Englishmen offered us their tank which they believe to be more comfortable for it is fitted with air conditioners. An air conditioner is of course a bonus, but we need a tank that can accomplish combat missions in any circumstances, in any complicated geographic region," Verma said.
India is in a unique position where it can acquire the most up-to-date armaments from almost any sources. However the preference has been and will be given to Russian assets, the expert stressed.
At the same time, supplies of spare parts and servicing has been a week point of the Russian-Indian military cooperation until recently. "However there are no problems in this sphere at present," Verma noted.