MOSCOW, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Russian Navy plans to buy the first batch of MiG-29K fighters set to be deployed on an aircraft carrier later this year, said a Navy official on Friday.

    "This year we are planning to buy the first batch of several machines," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted the unnamed official as saying.

    He did not specify the actual numbers of the fighters that will be deployed on the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier.

    A total of 24 MiG-29Ks will be purchased by the Navy in the next three to four years with an estimated cost of one billion U.S. dollars, said the report.

    Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in late last September that one of the most import issues for the Russian Armed Forces was to recreate Navy in the coming decade.

    He also said in last March that the armed forces will undergo comprehensive rearmament beginning in 2011.