NEW DELHI, February 8. /TASS/. The Indian-Russian company BrahMos Aerospace is working on a light aircraft version of a new generation of air-launched supersonic missiles and plans to offer them to the Russian armed forces, Atul Rane, the company’s managing director and CEO, told TASS on Wednesday.
"Russia already has similar land-based missiles. They have ship-based missiles. [As for] air-launched [missiles] - they don’t have [them] yet. Only India has air-launched BrahMos missiles, Russia does not have them," Rane said.
He added that the company would probably offer the Russian Air Force not the current, already developed BrahMos aircraft missile, but a future version of the missile, a lighter one, which is currently being developed. The new missile, dubbed BrahMos NG, weighs almost half as much and is smaller than the conventional BrahMos aircraft missile.
Rane suggested that discussions about supplying such missiles to Russia could begin after the de-escalation of the Ukrainian conflict. "Maybe once this conflict (in Ukraine - TASS) is over, it (the discussion of obtaining the BrahMos missiles - TASS) might start," the BrahMos CEO noted.
The BrahMos is a supersonic cruise missile, developed by the joint Russian-Indian BrahMos Aerospace company. The missile was jointly developed by Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya and India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The first trial launch took place in 2001. Various versions of this missile have been commissioned to India’s Navy, Air Force and ground forces. BrahMos Aerospace’s headquarters is located in New Delhi. The name BrahMos is a combination of the names of the Brahmaputra River in India and Moskva River in Russia.