Nine years from keel-laying to launch, with further years of fitting-out and trials still ahead, illustrates why submarine programmes are measured in decades rather than budget cycles — a point directly relevant to India's own long-running effort to build nuclear attack submarines domestically. The Yasen-M class is significant because it combines the traditional anti-submarine role with vertical launch cells for cruise missiles, so a single hull can both hunt other submarines and strike land targets at range. Russian submarine design is not an abstract interest for India, which has historically leased Russian nuclear attack submarines and draws on that design lineage in its own programmes.