From Missile Boats to Nuclear Submarines: A Half-Century of Cooperation Between the Indian and Soviet Navies
On December 4, 1971, at 22:45, a missile struck the starboard side of the Pakistani destroyer PNS Khaibar as it patrolled the approaches to Karachi. Five minutes later, a second missile strike detonated the ship’s ammunition magazine. Over the next hour and a half, the Indian Navy flotilla destroyed another destroyer, a minesweeper, and a troop transport, while severely damaging Karachi's oil storage facility. It was only by morning that the Pakistani command realized the primary strike force of the Indian Navy that night had been cutting-edge Project 205 missile boats armed with P-15 missiles.
In this article, we will briefly examine the objectives driving naval cooperation between India and the USSR, trace its origins, and attempt to determine whether the modern framework of Russian-Indian cooperation in this sphere remains relevant today.
The 1960s were an era of tectonic shifts in global politics. Great power rivalry sparked several major military incidents and wars across the globe. India found itself drawn into a series of armed conflicts, including the annexation of Goa (1961), the Sino-Indian War (1962), and the Second Indo-Pakistani War (1965). Meanwhile, the Soviet Union's relations with both the People's Republic of China and the Western Bloc grew increasingly strained. Facing shared geopolitical adversaries, the two nations gradually deepened their cooperation across multiple fronts, including military ties.
The 1965 Indo-Pakistani War highlighted three critical problems for the Indian Navy. First, the backbone of the fleet consisted of ship classes designed and built either during or immediately after World War II. Second, all these vessels were of British construction. The United Kingdom had been India's sole warship exporter, but due to the outbreak of the war, the British government refused to continue selling ships to India on concessional terms. Third, the Indian fleet lacked a single submarine, as the former colonial power deemed it too risky to sell them.
The inability to attack enemy vessels from underwater severely hindered the effectiveness of the Indian Navy, especially since just a few submarines could have blockaded shipping in Karachi and Chittagong — Pakistan’s two primary ports. Consequently, in 1965, the decision was made to purchase Project 641 diesel-electric submarines. Four submarines of this class would enter service before the next war with Pakistan. Mastering these new vessels became a major milestone in the evolution of the Indian Navy: Soviet sailors shared their operational expertise, while mechanics from Shipyard No. 196 helped establish maintenance and repair workflows for the submarines in Visakhapatnam.
Despite all measures taken to master the machinery, during the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, the Indian Navy command feared that unrefined operational coordination between headquarters and the submarines could lead to the sinking of neutral vessels. Consequently, they enforced strict rules of engagement, effectively turning the submarines into reconnaissance tools. The international climate forced these measures, as any incident could have been used to justify aggression against India, but this step prevented the submarines from being utilized to their full potential. With no major naval confrontations occurring after the war, the Project 641 submarines and their crews went down in Indian Navy history as pioneers who paved the way for the development of the Indian submarine fleet. The bulk of the work fell on the shoulders of the surface forces.
Soviet-Indian surface naval cooperation actually began taking shape four months earlier. August 9, 1971, became a landmark date for relations between the two countries; it was on this very day that the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation between the USSR and India was signed. It laid the foundation for a strategic partnership, particularly through naval cooperation. India signed a contract for the delivery of Project 159 patrol ships and Project 205 missile boats. These missile boats carried advanced P-15 Termit anti-ship missiles, which offered greater reliability and range than their counterparts. The vessels arrived just in time, providing the Indian Navy with a weapon capable of turning the tide of the war at sea.
Forming the backbone of the fleet's striking power, the missile boats conducted two raids on Karachi: Operation Trident and Operation Python, on December 4-5 and December 8-9, respectively. The first raid, Operation Trident, crippled the Pakistani fleet, with the Indian side suffering zero casualties. During the second raid, Operation Python, several vessels were sunk, though the primary damage was inflicted on Karachi’s port infrastructure. More than half of the fuel and ammunition reserves stored at the port were destroyed, along with billions of dollars worth of equipment. The success of these two operations decisively accelerated India’s victory on land as well. Since then, December 4 has been marked as Indian Navy Day.
The success of the Indian Navy raised deep concerns for Pakistan's ally, the United States. The White House dispatched Task Force 74 to the Indian Ocean to exert pressure on India. However, the aircraft carrier task force triggered a sharp response from the Soviet Navy. To prevent a wider escalation, both superpowers ultimately refrained from direct intervention.
Following the war, bilateral cooperation deepened significantly. The affordability and combat-proven track record of Soviet weaponry, coupled with warm diplomatic ties, triggered a surge of new defense contracts. Beyond acquiring additional missile boats and patrol ships, India diversified its fleet with Soviet corvettes, guided-missile ships, anti-submarine warfare vessels, and modern Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines (Paltus). Ultimately, New Delhi acquired more than 20 vessels, the majority of which were assembled locally in Indian shipyards.
The next phase of cooperation centered on the development of India's nuclear-powered submarine fleet. During a Soviet delegation’s visit in 1981, Moscow offered New Delhi assistance in designing both submarines and their nuclear propulsion units. To facilitate crew training and establish shore-based maintenance workflows during the construction phase, the USSR proposed leasing an existing Project 670 nuclear submarine (K-43). The subsequent Indian training program spanned six years, concluding in 1987. Following a comprehensive refit in Vladivostok, the vessel was prepared for transfer. However, the political climate shifted: as relations thawed between the US and the USSR, Washington pressured Moscow to cancel the lease, but the Soviet Union ultimately resisted the pressure and proceeded with transferring the submarine to India in early 1988.
Cooperation, which had been at its peak, began to fade. Russia lacked the funds to build new ships, and many enterprises were now scattered across the territories of the newly formed post-Soviet states. India, for its part, was wary of ordering new vessels from an economically unstable ally. Cooperation only resumed in the 2000s. The first major milestone in reviving the partnership was the order to purchase and modernize the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.
By the end of the century, the Indian Navy operated two aircraft carriers: INS Vikrant and INS Viraat, both built in the 1940s and 1950s. Vikrant was the older of the pair and had even served under the British flag during World War II. Following its sale to India in 1957, it served as India's sole aircraft carrier for nearly 30 years, seeing active deployment in both peacetime and wartime. With the ship nearing the end of its service life, this distinguished veteran needed a replacement.
The Indian government shortlisted three options for its new aircraft carrier: the French Clemenceau, the American Kitty Hawk, and the Soviet-Russian Admiral Gorshkov. The advantage of the first two lay in their immediate availability, as both were conventional aircraft carriers that required no radical rebuilding. In contrast, the Admiral Gorshkov was a highly specialized aviation cruiser that demanded a massive overhaul. Yet, the Russian candidate won out. The Western ships were badly worn down by decades of active service, while the Russian vessel had completed only a few deployments before being laid up in 1992.
On March 9, 2004, the Admiral Gorshkov was officially transferred to India, and modernization began at the Sevmash shipyard. The massive reconstruction dragged on for eight years. The final result was an aircraft carrier with capabilities comparable to the Admiral Kuznetsov, though stripped of its anti-ship missiles and outfitted with several Indian-made systems.
The air wing of the new Vikramaditya was composed of MiG-29K fighter jets, alongside Ka-28 and Ka-31 helicopters. On November 16, 2013, the Indian Navy flag was raised over the ship, marking the start of the Indian crew's efforts to master this new hardware.
Parallel to the aircraft carrier negotiations, work was underway on the joint development of the BrahMos multi-purpose cruise missile. Just six years passed between the 1998 agreement and the start of mass production, which now runs at an estimated 80 to 100 missiles per year. A variant of the Russian P-800 Oniks anti-ship missile, the BrahMos has become the primary weapon of its class in the Indian Navy. The surface, submarine, air, and land variants are standardized. This lowers the price of the missile through economies of scale, shared logistics, and a single operational system. The BrahMos Aerospace joint venture continues to upgrade the missile by extending its range and improving its guidance systems. Currently, export negotiations are underway with Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
The defense cooperation crisis of the 1990s has clearly passed, but the partnership looks very different today. The Soviet Union used to simply sell weapons to India in large volumes. Today, the two nations share a true partnership built on joint funding, technology sharing, and pooled expertise. India's growing industrial sector now builds entire classes of weapons, with more production moving inside its borders. This shift supports the Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) policy, which aims to secure India's strategic autonomy. At the same time, Russia's push for a multipolar world strengthens these ties. Together, this partnership reinforces the strategic security of both nations.