Indian Naval Ships Thailand Visit: Udaygiri, Kavaratti and Shakti Dock at Sattahip

The Indian Naval Ships Thailand visit got under way this week as Udaygiri, Kavaratti and Shakti of the Eastern Fleet entered the naval base at Sattahip. The Royal Thai Navy received the task group pierside.

The deployment is led by RAdm Alok Ananda, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet.

Eastern Fleet task group arrives at Sattahip

Three ships made the entry. INS Udaygiri, a stealth frigate; INS Kavaratti, an anti-submarine corvette; and INS Shakti, the fleet's replenishment tanker. They sailed in as the next leg of an ongoing operational deployment to South East Asia, the same group that was alongside in Vietnam only days earlier on its way east.

Sattahip anchors the Royal Thai Navy's main fleet base on the Gulf of Thailand.

It is a natural call for Indian warships working the long stretch of water between the eastern Indian Ocean and the South China Sea approaches, and the kind of port that fits neatly into a presence mission of this length.

Indian Naval Ships Thailand call: what the programme covers

The schedule runs across professional exchanges, cross deck visits and operational interactions, with crews meeting through sporting fixtures and outreach ashore.

The Indian Navy puts the aim plainly. Sharper navy to navy cooperation, and interoperability that holds up when the two fleets have to work together at sea.

India Thailand maritime partnership

India and Thailand have run a steady maritime relationship for years, anchored by the coordinated patrol the two navies conduct along their shared maritime boundary in the Andaman Sea. Port calls of this kind sit alongside that patrol work and the regular defence dialogue between the two capitals.

The visit lands within India's wider engagement across South East Asia under the Act East approach, where the Navy has become the most visible arm of Indian diplomacy in the region.

Indigenous platforms on show

Udaygiri is one of the Navy's Project 17A frigates, built at Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders in Mumbai. Kavaratti came out of Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers in Kolkata as a Project 28 corvette put together almost entirely from Indian-sourced material and design. The Ministry of Defence frames the Sattahip call as a showcase of that indigenous design, modular construction and onboard technology, and of India's pitch as a dependable partner in defence technology.

Operational deployment and the Eastern Fleet

The Eastern Fleet sails from Visakhapatnam under the Eastern Naval Command. Its ships range across the Bay of Bengal, the Malacca approaches and the South China Sea.

The current deployment threads several regional port calls into one extended presence mission, and that pattern of forward presence has run hard through the year. Indian warships have been showing up in friendly ports from the South West Indian Ocean to the Pacific rim, flying the flag and exercising with host navies as they go.

The ships are due to sail from Sattahip once the harbour phase ends and the deployment continues eastward.

Read the Indian Navy's announcement on X: