Did REALLY india Financing Bangladesh Air Force’s Mig-35 Purchase?

Bangladesh Air Force will buy a squadron of Russian Mig-35 multirole fighter jets. Government of Bangladesh will finance the procurement. No loan will be taken to buy them. But, India offered a $500 million line-of-credit to Dhaka to purchase Mig-35, as many news outlet reported.

But it is skeptical why india wants to finance Bangladesh Air Force’s fighter aircraft purchase? As observers assumed, india wants to create technical influence over Bangladesh Armed Forces. India has some political and cultural in Bangladesh but it lacks such influence over the armed forces of the country. 

From recent defense purchases of Dhaka irks india, especially, buying submarines from China. Previously india pressurized Bangladesh Government to accept indian proposal for a 25-year defense agreement and buy defense equipment from them. But, Bangladesh Army strongly rejected the idea. 

After that Delhi found a new way to shackle Bangladesh’s defense modernization by pushing in their money into Bangladesh Armed Force’s equipment procurement which will create some strong leverage upon the deployment of those military articles alongside indian border. 

But, from the mass people and military of the country has been rejecting the proposals. According to the indian authority, indian media reported several times that Bangladesh will use their money to buy the Mig-35 jets from Russia. These media reports don’t cite any official statement from the Bangladeshi side. Rather seeming it confirmed that BAF will pay the price of Mig-35 from india’s line-of-credit money, ridiculous. 

Such unprofessional reporting created some hoax about it. Neither Government of Bangladesh nor Bangladesh Air Force said they’ll take indian money for buying defense equipment. So, until any official announcement from Bangladeshi authority it is a baseless news.