…AS INDIA PLANS NEW PURCHASE.

The Indian government has decided to purchase from Russia five squadrons of two-seat multipurpose Su-30MK fighters for its air force, an Indian newspaper reported April 14. The deal, described as the largest purchase of a single weapons system ever by India, was estimated at $1.8 billion. All planes will reportedly be supplied to India by February 2001. (Itar-Tass, April 14) In February of this year, a deputy head of Rosvooruzheniye said that the value of military and technical cooperation between Russia and India would reach $3.5 billion in 1996 and could total more than $7 billion by the end of the decade. (See Monitor, February 21)

Moldova’s Complex Constitutional Crisis.