Vietnam shows great interest in developing Gepard-3.9 frigate project, with possible production localization - Russian military cooperation service head

MOSCOW. June 18 (Interfax) - Vietnam has shown great interest in Russia's Project 11661E Gepard-3.9 Class frigates, and localization of their production in that country is likely, Russian Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service Director Dmitry Shugayev said.

"There is great interest in developing the Gepard-3.9 Class frigate project, as four of these frigates are already in service with the Vietnamese Navy. I think we can count on this to go on, including localization of production," Shugayev said in an interview with Channel One.

"Vietnam is currently armed with our aircraft, ground forces hardware, and naval equipment is an essential component," he said.

As previously reported, Vietnam purchased four Gepard-class frigates from Russia. The first pair of ships was built and delivered to Vietnam in 2010-2011. The second pair was ordered in the anti-submarine version and delivered to the customer in December 2017.

The Zelenodolsk Design Bureau developed and built the four Project 11661E Gepard-3.9 Class frigates.