To complete nuclear triad, Indian navy to lease Russian sub

India's long-standing quest to have a viable nuclear weapon triad — the capability to fire nukes from the air, land and sea — will finally take a big leap towards completion when it takes a Russian nuclear submarine on lease next year.

This morale-boosting news for the country's strategic establishment comes with the fact that the 12,000-tonne Akula-II nuclear-powered attack submarine, which was being built at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard in Russia, began shore-based trials recently.

"The submarine's sea-based trials will follow after that... We expect the submarine to join the Indian navy in the latter half of 2009," confirmed a top defence source on Thursday.

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