Indo-Russian Brahmos Missile To Be Exported To The Philippines, Confirms Russia
November 12, 2020
Countries from the Southeast Asian region including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam have expressed keen interest in the BrahMos missile which has the capability to be launched from aircraft, land platforms as well as the sea. In view of the growing tensions between India and China along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, BrahMos missiles along with other air assets have been deployed in key locations.
One of the ASEAN countries the Philippines could be the first to get the Indo-Russian BrahMos supersonic missile. Briefing the media persons ahead of the BRICS summit next week, Russian Deputy Chief of Mission Roman Babushkin said “Russia and India are planning to export the BrahMos supersonic missile to export to the Philippines and several other countries.”
Financial Express Online has reported earlier that several countries in the ASEAN Region have been in discussion with India for the BrahMos supersonic missile. Countries from the Southeast Asian region including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam have expressed keen interest in the BrahMos missile which has the capability to be launched from aircraft, land platforms as well as the sea.
People familiar with the ongoing talks with the Southeast Asian country Philippines have confirmed that “The agreement to export the missile to that country is expected to be signed soon. The talks are in advanced stage but had slowed down due to the global lockdown due to the COVID-19.”
Responding to a query related to series of tests which have been carried out in recent months, Roman Babushkin said, “All the tests carried out were mainly to increase the range of the missile, the tests of contemporary version were successful. And, export to third countries starts with the Philippines.”
The Tests So Far
Several tests of the new version of the missile have been carried out in different locations. And the range of the new version has been increased from 290 km to 400 km and the speed has been maintained at Mach 2.8, almost three times that of sound.
It has been reported earlier that in October a naval version of the BrahMos missile was tested successfully in the Arabian Sea and was fired from an indigenously-built stealth destroyer of the Indian Navy.
This was followed by another successful test carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) which was fired from the Russian fighter Su-30 MKI in the Bay of Bengal.
In view of the growing tensions between India and China along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh, BrahMos missiles along with other air assets have been deployed in key locations.
Countries From Southeast Asia, Middle East, South America & Eastern European And Africa Are Interested In The Indo-Russian Missile
Countries in the Middle East including UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have been in talks with India for this missile.
South American nations including Brazil and Chile have been expressing their interest in buying these missiles.
Even South Africa, Egypt, South Korea, Bulgaria have shown interest in this missile.
Financial Express Online was the first to report that BrahMos is one of the platforms that have been identified as an export item to friendly nations, as the missile designed and developed by India and Russia has been generating a lot of interests across the globe.
Courtesy: FEOnline