This month Russia will fulfil the deal envisaging delivery of 40 Sukhoi jets to India.

"On December 20 we will complete the deliveries of six remaining Su-30MKI fighters to the Indian Air Force under the contract signed on November 30, 1996," the President of the Irkut Aerospace Corporation, Alexei Fedorov, said in Moscow on Tuesday.

Fedorov said from the very beginning it was clear that the $1.5 billion deal was a challenging job for the Russian defence industry.

"But we never thought that it would be so difficult as it involved hundreds of developers and thousands of vendors, Russian as well as foreign. As a result of devoted efforts of Russian and Indian designers and engineers along with the Israeli, French and British vendors, today we have the unique multi-role fighter," he said.

With the commissioning of Su-30MKI jets, the IAF has become the first air force in the world to induct multi-role fighters with thrust-vectoring engines.