- Vikramaditya was acquired from Russia for $2.3 billion.
- It was commissioned into the Navy in November 2013 without the crucial air-defence systems. They are now being installed during the “guaranteed refit”, in addition to scheduled maintenance, by the original equipment manufacturer.
- It is a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier. She has been renamed in honour of Vikramaditya, a legendary 1st century BCE emperor of Ujjain, India.
- The Israeli-supplied Barak-1 point defence missile system and the Russian-origin AK-630 close-in weapon system, borrowed from a to-be-decommissioned Godavari-class ship, are installed on Vikramaditya.
The carrier was originally scheduled to receive a long-range surface-to-air missile system under joint development with Israel. But delay in its development resulted in the carrier being inducted without its own air-defence cover.
