Russia on Monday handed over to India the Tabar frigate, the third ship Moscow has built for New Delhi's navy under a one-billion-dollar contract, news reports said.
"Russian shipbuilders transferred to us the Tabar frigate today," Shri Krishnan Raghunath, India's ambassador to Russia, said at a ceremony at the Baltiisk navy yard in Saint Petersburg.
"Its addition to the Indian Navy will boost our fleet's capabilities," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. The director of the Baltiisky factory that built the ship praised it a one of a kind. "There are no ships analogous to such a ship today," Oleg Shulyakovsky was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news agency.
The 4,035-ton ship can reach speeds of up to 30 knots and will have a crew of 193 people, Interfax news agency reported. It is equipped with a broad range of anti-submarine, anti-aircraft, artillery and torpedo weapons systems.