VLADIVOSTOK — Russian and Indian warships are due to rehearse a simulated hijacking and an attack by drone boats in the Sea of Japan on October 16 and 17, in an exercise whose size depends on which ministry is describing it.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Indra 2026 opened on Wednesday in the Chelyabinsk Region and the Far East, with ground forces of both countries, warships of both navies and Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft taking part, TASS reported. The Russian corvette Aldar Tsydenzhapov and the Indian frigate INS Sahyadri, which reached Vladivostok several days earlier, took part in the opening ceremony of the maritime phase at the Pacific Fleet’s main base, the ministry said.
India’s Ministry of Defence, in a statement carried by state broadcaster All India Radio, described only a bilateral naval exercise between the Indian Navy and the Russian Federation Navy, scheduled for October 13 to 18. It said the Sahyadri’s participation is “in consonance with the Government of India’s vision of MAHASAGAR” and builds on a “longstanding defence and maritime partnership.” The statement as published says nothing about troops or aircraft.
The Russian account is the fuller one, and the Indian text published by News On AIR is shorter. At sea, according to TASS, the ships will practice tactical manoeuvring, artillery fire at sea and air targets, an inspection operation, freeing a vessel simulated to have been seized by terrorists, and repelling attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned boats. Ashore, the active phase runs until October 23, with a core of servicemen from the 90th Guards Tank Division of the Central Military District practicing command and control and a joint operation to destroy “illegal armed groups.”
Air crews of the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Indian Air Force, flying Su-30SM aircraft, are to practice combating small, low-flying targets and manoeuvrable air combat, and Mi-8 helicopters will land special forces and practice search and rescue for crews in distress, the Russian ministry said. The Indian statement does not mention an air or land component, and none of the accounts reviewed for this report says how many Indian troops, ships or aircraft are involved.
The gap is not necessarily a contradiction; a ministry may publish only the part of an exercise it chooses to announce. It does leave the public record lopsided. TEH reported in June that the Kremlin was signalling the depth of Russia-India defense ties, and the two capitals have kept talking since: in August, as TEH reported, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met Putin at the Kremlin.
On the Russian side, the list of drills is long and specific. On the Indian side, the published detail is a ship in Vladivostok, a date range and a policy vision. Which of the two descriptions the exercise will end up matching is not yet known.
