Russia says India aircraft carrier delivery delayed 5 months

Russia will put off delivery of a renovated $2.3 billion aircraft carrier to India by five months to fix defects in its construction, a state shipbuilder said, blaming some of the problems on NATO-supplied equipment.

Sources close to Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport told Reuters earlier this week that problems with the boilers on the Vikramaditya were discovered during sea trials and would delay delivery of the vessel by six months to a year.

The head of a top shipbuilder confirmed on Friday that boilers had malfunctioned. “Besides that, there are a series of mechanisms which malfunctioned including those delivered by countries of NATO,” Interfax reported Andrei Dyachkov, president of United Shipbuilding Corporation, which owns another company that is doing the renovation, as saying. He did not go into details.

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