Nature of the Relationship

• David M. Malone → the Indo-Russian relationship does not extend as far back as those with the colonial powers. The Himalayas and the Hindu Kush insulated India from meaningful early contact. Much of the relevant history is the ‘Great Game’ of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when Russia sought to challenge Britain’s supremacy in South Asia, parts of Central Asia and Iran. The Caucasus and Afghanistan, both central to the Great Game, formed a powerful buffer, leaving India well beyond the Soviet sphere. During the Cold War, conflict with China and the unreliability of the United States drew India into a comprehensive relationship with Moscow, culminating in the 1971 treaty of friendship — yet Delhi worked hard to stay independent and was never included entirely in the Soviet camp.
• Rajiv Sikri → Russia has been a steadfast friend and a very special and privileged partner for decades — assistance in industrial development, energy, education, space, atomic energy and defence equipment; affordable Soviet credit and rupee trade; political support at decisive moments over Kashmir, Goa, Sikkim and Bangladesh. India continues to procure aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and weapon systems unavailable elsewhere.
• Rajan Menon → American containment extended to Asia after the Korean War, creating overlapping interests between Moscow and New Delhi. Moscow sought a gap in Washington’s cordon sanitaire, which required ties with non-aligned countries; India, as leader of the non-aligned movement, became a potential partner and a progressive force.
• Raj Kumar Sharma → since 1947 India had a large friendly country to its north that dominated the Eurasian landmass and helped it deal with China. That prospect is now under scrutiny, as Russia and China assert a ‘no-limit partnership’. During the Cold War, Russia acted as a balancer in India-China ties while an internationally beleaguered China accommodated India’s concerns. Today China is not hampered by Russian power, and Beijing may not be willing to address New Delhi’s concerns — which is why PM Modi has given up past inhibitions toward the United States.
• Nivedita Kapoor and Nandan Unnikrishnan → ties seem to be stagnating as both countries try to define their roles in a changing world. Despite the 2010 ‘special and privileged strategic partnership’, drift was evident — India-Russia trade was merely US$20 billion in 2015 while Russia-China trade had reached US$107 billion in 2018.
• Srinath Raghavan, on the regret and nostalgia generated by the 2016 Russia-Pakistan exercises → fellow Indians should clear the cobwebs from their minds. The relationship, undeniably significant, was not without complexities; Moscow’s interactions with New Delhi were consistently influenced by its strategic interests. There is no necessity to romanticise the relationship, and nostalgia alone is not a sustainable basis for policy.

“Every child in India knows that Russia is our best friend.” — Narendra Modi, on a relationship resting on equality, trust and mutual benefit

Distinctive features

• Stable without major fluctuations despite changes of government or socio-political system in either country.
• No bilateral disputes, no threat perceptions, positive popular perception on both sides.
• Similar security concerns on terrorism; similar positions on Afghanistan and Syria.
• Russian support for a permanent UNSC seat and NSG membership.

India’s Interests in Russia

The Five Phases — Vidya Nadkarni’s Frame

From no contact to a pragmatic, market-driven partnership. I · to 1953 (Great Game inheritance; Stalin’s indifference) → II · 1953–71 (Khrushchev’s recalibration; Bhilai; arms) → III · 1971–91 (Treaty tilt; 1971 war; 85% arms share) → IV · Post-Soviet decade (Drift, then the 1993 reset) → V · 21st century (Anti-unipolarity; 2000 Strategic Partnership)

Phase I (up to 1953) — from pre-independence to Stalin

• Vidya Nadkarni → until independence, ties between British India and Imperial Russia were shaped by two British preoccupations — securing the Indian colony from southward Russian expansion, and later the rise of Germany, which triggered a British entente with France and Russia.
• Beginnings trace to the early nineteenth century, when the Tsar expanded into Central Asia; the British fought the Afghan wars to create a buffer, producing the Great Game. The Anglo-Russian Convention (1907) ended it; the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) then superimposed ideological antipathies on earlier geopolitical competition.
• Vidya Nadkarni → early Soviet leaders were not keen on supporting the Indian national movement, judging it bourgeois-led and lacking revolutionary potential; Russia was also preoccupied with internal concerns and Western opposition to Bolshevik rule.
• After independence, Nehru’s idealism and disdain for realpolitik coloured policy until the early 1960s — faith in a new Asian path, replacing European-style power politics with peaceful coexistence, and the search for the moral high ground. Even in the tight bipolarity of the 1940s, non-alignment isolated India from the high tables of decision-making: neither Stalin nor Truman would accept it. Vidya Nadkarni — the pursuit of autonomy meant India had no powerful international sponsors to protect its interests.

Phase II (1953–1971) — beginning of engagement

• Non-alignment and the mixed economy under centralised planning closed doors to full Western engagement. The West refused assistance for a public sector steel plant at Bhilai, pushing India toward the aid agreement of 1955.
• Vidya Nadkarni → unlike Stalin, who viewed India’s leaders as capitalist lackeys, Khrushchev saw the value of enlisting India as an anti-imperialist ally. This recalibration of doctrine and policy toward the Third World opened the door to Soviet economic and military assistance. While elite preference for non-alignment would have predicted divergence, a key domestic variable — India’s mixed economy, closer to the Soviet model — facilitated improved ties. The India-Soviet nexus is, in effect, a legacy of Nehru’s early policy choices.
• The USSR offered diplomatic backing on Kashmir and the Sino-Indian boundary. During the 1962 war however, Moscow reversed its earlier support, parroted the Chinese view that India’s border position was a legacy of British imperialism, and counselled a negotiated ceasefire on Chinese terms. Military help came only after the war, but began an arms relationship that replaced Britain as India’s primary supplier and helped repel Pakistan in 1965.
• Harsh V. Pant → the Soviet Union feared that American and British military aid during the 1962 war might tilt New Delhi toward the West, so a renewed push was given after 1962.
• The Sino-Soviet conflict, brewing since the late 1950s, broke openly in 1963, drawing India and the USSR closer. The estrangement eventually paved the way for Sino-American rapprochement through Kissinger’s 1971 trip. Since Pakistan was the indispensable intermediary, India feared a hostile Washington-Beijing-Islamabad axis, and Moscow saw the reconciliation as a threat to Soviet interests.

Phase III (1971–1991) — strategic engagement

• Vidya Nadkarni → these systemic developments led to the twenty-year Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace and Friendship (August 1971), cementing a pronounced tilt. Generous Soviet military aid allowed India to defeat Pakistan in the 1971 war, dismember the Pakistani state through the creation of Bangladesh, and establish India as the pre-eminent power in South Asia.
• The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979) shook New Delhi as an unwarranted incursion into India’s sphere of influence, though India stayed publicly uncritical. By the 1980s, Soviet arms constituted 85 per cent of India’s imports.
• In the mid-1980s, Rajiv Gandhi and Mikhail Gorbachev both began economic liberalisation, Gorbachev under the banner of perestroika. Both leaders were committed to the relationship, yet the cumulative effect of domestic reform in both countries attenuated ties by the end of the decade.

Phase IV — the post-Soviet decade

• Gorbachev’s ‘new thinking’ (1987) produced a reappraisal of unqualified support for India — even-handedness between India and Pakistan, concern expressed on Kashmir, and a Soviet vote for a Pakistani-sponsored UN resolution on a nuclear-free zone. In 1991 the twentieth anniversary of the Indo-Soviet treaty was not officially acknowledged in either capital.
• Smita Purushottam → with the end of the Soviet Union and further decline of the Russian economy, ties underwent a reset. Russia focused on nurturing relations with the West and neglected its old relationship with India. The West could not move beyond bipolar mindsets and attributed the double collapse of the USSR to its ‘containment’ policies. Western structural adjustment and liberalisation contributed to Russia’s further decline and relegated it from a geopolitical pole to a mid-level power.
• Vidya Nadkarni → by early 1993 Russia was disenchanted with the United States and Europe and began to rekindle ties with India. A key reason was the American decision to expand NATO and undertake ‘out-of-area’ operations in the Balkans, which decisively ended Moscow’s ‘romance with the West’. During Yeltsin’s 1993 visit both signed the twenty-year Treaty of Indo-Russian Friendship and Cooperation.
• Irritants — curtailment of space cooperation owing to American fears about India’s ballistic missile programme, leading to cancellation of cryogenic engine supply, though Moscow honoured existing contracts for seven engines; and application of the full range of safeguards to future nuclear supply agreements.
• The Taliban’s seizure of power in 1996 worried both, and India and Russia began supporting the opposition Northern Alliance. Vidya Nadkarni — convergence in Afghanistan, a shared preference for a polycentric world, and a common disinclination toward violating state sovereignty through humanitarian intervention warmed ties by the late 1990s. Putin steered Russian foreign policy in a pragmatic direction, producing the strategic partnership agreement of 2000.

Phase V — the twenty-first century

• Vidya Nadkarni → the relationship that went haywire in the 1990s was reconstituted on a new footing, with antipathy toward the emerging unipolar world and American unilateralism as the prime movers. India’s preference for a multipolar order made convergence possible at the macro level.
• Rajan Menon and Eugene Rumer → the most important driver of realignment was political and economic dynamics in India. Liberalisation, coinciding with global trends, expanded India’s economic and political relations with the United States; Clinton’s 2000 visit was a milestone.
• At the policy level, India’s growing appetite for weapons and Russia’s interest in rescuing its cash-strapped defence industry provided a synergy both were eager to exploit. India’s growing strength propelled it toward wider strategic engagement with the United States and Japan.
• Smita Purushottam → Russia’s tight embrace of China in the early decades of this century was driven by system-level factors — opposition to unilateralism, NATO expansion, and ballistic missile defences on its doorstep. Russian technological expertise and Chinese finance made them suitable partners. After Crimea and Ukraine the embrace tightened further, against India’s interest in Russia as a strong independent pole.

Relations in the Modi Years

• Signs of stagnation were already evident in 2014, when the U.S. displaced Russia as top arms supplier. India’s designation as a Major Defence Partner (2016) caused consternation in Moscow; India began the 2+2 dialogue (2018) and signed LEMOA (2016) and COMCASA (2018).
• In reaction, Russia overturned decades-old policy and supplied China with the Sukhoi 35 and S-400, conducted military exercises with Pakistan (2016), and sold Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan (2016).
• The Sochi informal summit (2018) and the annual summit that followed produced decisions on S-400 supply, the start of FTA negotiations between the Eurasian Economic Union and India, a single-window service in Russia for Indian companies, Russia Plus in India to facilitate Russian investment, the India-Russia Business Summit, the Far East Agency in Mumbai, ‘India-Russia Economic Cooperation: The Way Forward’, and LNG supply from Gazprom.
• Rajan Menon and Eugene Rumer → Russia is adjusting its long-standing India-centred South Asia policy in response to New Delhi’s closer security ties with Washington, without abandoning India, whose global strategic heft exceeds that of Pakistan.
• Institutional structure — the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission rests on two pillars: IRIGC-TEC, co-chaired by India’s External Affairs Minister and a Russian Deputy Prime Minister, and IRIGC-MTC, co-chaired by both Defence Ministers. The Annual Summit is the highest institutionalised dialogue mechanism.

The 23rd Annual Summit — Putin in New Delhi, December 2025

President Putin’s state visit of 4–5 December 2025 was his first to India since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and marked the 25th anniversary of the October 2000 Declaration on Strategic Partnership. It met under heavy external pressure — a 50 per cent US tariff wall, half of it tied to Russian crude, and US sanctions on Russia’s largest oil companies. 16 intergovernmental agreements and 15 MoUs were signed; the “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership” was reaffirmed.

Resilience or stagnation — the central debate

• Alexei Zakharov → the relationship is paradoxical: sustainable through old ties, yet stagnant because no new areas have been defined; the record trade is imbalanced and rests almost wholly on oil, and the ties lack novel drivers for the long haul.
• Pravesh Kumar Gupta → the same event reads as reassurance — the visit reaffirmed a time-tested partnership built on political trust. The gap is one of emphasis: Zakharov weighs the missing deals, the VIF view weighs durability under pressure.
• Chietigj Bajpaee → autonomy works only when the major powers get along; as US–Russia ties soured, India’s links with Moscow drew fresh scrutiny. His long-run reading is a managed decline — short-term handling of US pressure, medium-term defence diversification, long-term deepening of Western ties.
• C. Raja Mohan → India asserted autonomy without harming its Western ties; the visit signalled independence to Washington while reassuring a domestic audience. S. Jaishankar calls India’s approach “freedom of choice”.
• Vrinda Sahai → discounted Russian crude rose from about 2.5 per cent of India’s imports before 2022 to roughly 36 per cent by FY2024–25; sanctions and tariffs pushed refiners toward Saudi, Iraqi and American crude. Dropping Russian oil entirely is not practical, so India follows an economy-first course — and because trade is so oil-dependent, any fall in crude purchases directly caps the headline trade figure.
• Restructuring, not reduction → the S-400 is already embedded in India’s air-defence network and a follow-on order worth about USD 6.1 billion was later cleared. Harsh V. Pant and Zakharov stress that no large new contract was signed and that war and sanctions limit fresh Russian supplies. The result is layered: legacy Russian systems retained, advanced platforms bought from the West, domestic production slowly expanded.
• The China shadow → Russia has grown more neutral on the India–Pakistan rivalry and was ambivalent after the Pahalgam attack. Anil Wadhwa argues Russia’s ties with China are tactical and with Pakistan transactional, meant to keep Beijing balanced. Delhi fears that Chinese sway over Moscow could slow spares and technology during a crisis, and that Chinese parts may enter Russian-origin equipment — which is why India stays non-committal on reviving the RIC troika.
• Rahul Pandey and the VIF hold that trust, high-end technology and shared multipolarity keep the partnership strong. Whether “decline” or “durability” fits better depends on the weight given to oil, China, and the deals that did not happen.

“Russia is ready for uninterrupted shipments of fuel to India.”

Vladimir Putin, New Delhi, 5 December 2025

“India is not neutral, it stands on the side of peace.”

Narendra Modi, 5 December 2025

“If the US has the right to buy our fuel, why shouldn’t India have the same privilege?”

Vladimir Putin

“The long-term direction of travel is towards a ‘managed decline’ in relations.”

Chietigj Bajpaee, 2 December 2025

“Neither side has any intention to dilute this relationship, and is ready to withstand any external pressure.”

Harsh V. Pant, 5 December 2025

Relations through Levels of Analysis

Vidya Nadkarni on the interplay of individual, state and system levels:

Nadkarni’s forecast → given the present configuration of elite proclivities, pro-Russia domestic constituencies and the strong defence partnership, the relationship is unlikely to be derailed for at least the next decade or two.

Areas of Cooperation

Economic

• State enterprises have long facilitated interaction in each other’s territory, building comfort among officials since the Cold War.
• Bilateral trade around $8.1 billion, with Russia only 1% of India’s total trade and India a mere 1.2% of Russia’s; targets of $30 billion in trade and $50 billion in investment by 2025. Trade declined between 2013 and 2016 and recovered from 2017.
• India’s total investment in Russia stands at $13 billion; renewed emphasis on hydrocarbons between 2015 and 2017. In later reckoning, trade reached $25 billion in 2022 and US$ 68.7 billion in FY 2024-25 — about five times the pre-pandemic level — driven chiefly by discounted oil.
• Institutional steps — the CEO’s Forum, liberalised business travel, Russian interest in dedicated freight corridors, industrial clusters, smart cities and engineering services; Indian interest in Russian coal, fertilizers, hydrocarbons, minerals and rare earths. A special notified zone at the Bharat Diamond Bourse was planned.

Political and international

• Convergence on a multipolar order, strengthening the UN system, terrorism, and peaceful use of outer space.
• Joint projects in third countries — the Rooppur nuclear plant in Bangladesh on a trilateral basis with Rosatom and Bangladesh’s Ministry of Science and Technology.
• The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) with Iran links the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea to Russia; with Sagarmala and the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway it can connect Europe and Russia to ASEAN and make India a transit hub.

Energy and nuclear

• India will account for almost 30 per cent of global energy demand growth and 11 per cent of global energy use by 2040, making diversification urgent; Russia is a natural candidate.
• ONGC Videsh has been in Russia since 2001 with a 20 per cent stake in Sakhalin-I and a joint venture in Sakhalin-III with Rosneft. East Siberian oil via the Kozmino Bay route is a prospective avenue. The sale of a 98% stake in Essar Oil to a Rosneft-led consortium was a significant step in deleveraging Indian corporate balance sheets.
• Nuclear cooperation dates to the 1960s — the 1961 RAPS research and development agreements, the 1976 heavy water contract, nuclear fuel for Tarapur in 1982 and 1988, and reactors and light water for Kudankulam after Pokhran-II.
• Strategic Vision for peaceful uses of atomic energy signed by the Department of Atomic Energy and Rosatom (December 2014); Russia proposed involving India in building Russian-designed plants in third countries, joint extraction of natural uranium, fuel production and waste elimination, and offered to build over 20 units, up from twelve. Units 1 and 2 of Kudankulam are operational, with 3 and 4 under construction. Eight years after India legitimised foreign collaboration in civil nuclear energy, Russia remained the only foreign nation involved in nuclear power production in India.

Defence and security

• Defence relations began after the Sino-Indian war of 1962 and have moved from a buyer-seller framework to joint research, development and production.
• More than 70% of Indian defence equipment is of Russian origin; Cold War purchases through rupee-rouble arrangements saved foreign exchange; technology transfers supported India’s domestic industry from the 1980s.
• Flagship projects — BrahMos, Sukhoi Su-30MKI, T-90 tanks, the fifth-generation fighter programme, modernisation of MiG-29s and Kamov-31 helicopters, the Multi Transport Aircraft, Talwar-class frigates under Project 11356, MiG-29K shipborne aircraft, and the aircraft carrier inducted as INS Vikramaditya (2013).
• S-400 supply; frigates under Project 1135.6; a joint venture for Ka-226T helicopters; Indo-Russian Rifles Pvt. Ltd. at Korwa producing AK-203 rifles under ‘Make in India’, with 48,000 units delivered by mid-2025.
• Exercises — the tri-services INDRA and the naval Indra Navy; frequent exchanges between defence ministers, service chiefs and defence secretaries.

Counter-terrorism, space, science, culture

• Counter-terrorism — Moscow, in light of its wars in Chechnya, has been sympathetic to India’s position: the 1994 Declaration on the Protection of the Interests of Pluralistic States; Yeltsin’s 1997 assurance; Putin’s 2000 commitments and joint support for the Northern Alliance; and the Moscow Declaration on International Terrorism (2001).
• Space — cooperation spans about four decades: satellite launches, GLONASS, remote sensing and societal applications. Aryabhata launched in 1975 with Soviet help, beginning India’s space programme; Bhaskara-1 launched in 1979 aboard a C1-Intercosmos vehicle. A 2007 framework agreement; a 2015 MoU on expanded cooperation; an ISRO-ROSCOSMOS MoU on human spaceflight at the 19th Bilateral Summit, with cooperation on Gaganyaan, space systems, rocket engines, propellants, spacecraft and launch vehicles.
• Science and technology — three institutional mechanisms: the Working Group on Science and Technology under IRIGC-TEC, the Integrated Long-Term Programme, and the Basic Science Cooperation Programme, with inter-academy exchanges. Initiatives include the India-Russia Bridge to Innovation, telemedicine, the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, GIAN, and the Russia India Network of universities; cooperation under the Arctic Council framework with the Russian Scientific Centre at Spitsbergen, Svalbard.
• Cultural — the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Centre works with leading Russian institutions; about 20 Russian institutions teach Hindi to around 1500 students; Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu, Sanskrit and Pali are also taught. JNCC conducts yoga, dance, music and Hindi classes for about 500 students a month; the six-month “Festival of India in Russia” (2018-19) across 22 cities featured 34 performances by 10 groups; regular exchanges since 2015 including the Festival of Russian Culture and “Namaste Russia”.

Areas of Concern and Contestation

Defence procurement — the Gorshkov case

• A 2004 contract for $1.5 billion with delivery expected in August 2008; infrastructure problems and underfunding of Russian shipbuilding produced delays and cost overruns; a renegotiated contract in March 2010 reset the cost to $2.34 billion; induction as INS Vikramaditya followed only in November 2013.
• Recurring concerns over quality, delivery delays and upgrades; problems with spare parts and maintenance, partly because Indian negotiators failed to build life-cycle perspectives into agreements; equipment becoming obsolete after a few years, with production plants shut and spares unavailable. Cost and time overruns pushed India to diversify toward Israel, France and the United States.

Weak economic base

• Commercial ties are not diverse: defence and nuclear energy dominate. Diversification is needed into films, education, research and development, and textiles.
• Barriers — geographical distance and absence of direct connectivity, which do not constrain India-Europe or India-China trade; lack of awareness of commercial opportunities; sudden changes in legal and tax regimes, as faced by Sistema in India and ONGC in Russia; the near-absence of Indian IT firms in Russia and Russian energy firms in India; customs barriers.
• Comparative scale — bilateral trade of only $11 billion, with military equipment the most significant element; in 2020 Russian non-weapons exports to India were under $6 billion and Indian exports to Russia under $3 billion, against Russia-China trade of just over $100 billion and US-India trade of $120 billion. Total Russian investment in India from 2000 to 2021 was $1.26 billion, against US FDI estimated at $42 billion — making the $50 billion target for 2025 unattainable.

Divergent foreign policy priorities

• Nivedita Kapoor and Nandan Unnikrishnan → the most prominent divergence is Russian displeasure at the ideation of the “Indo-Pacific”, which Russia calls an “artificially imposed construct” promoted by the U.S., Australia and Japan to contain China — despite PM Modi’s Shangri-La formulation of an Indo-Pacific based on “inclusiveness, openness and ASEAN centrality and unity”. Divergence also persists over Afghanistan.
• Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called the QUAD an “Asian NATO”. Russian outreach to Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and the Taliban-led Afghanistan complicates India’s security calculus.
• Alexei Zakharov → diverging China- and US-related interests are fraying strategic trust. Srinath Raghavan → post-Cold War ties became largely transactional, centred on arms sales. Shyam Saran → they now lack substantive drivers beyond nostalgia.

The India-Russia-US triangle

• Balancing has become harder since the early 2000s. Russia is a time-tested ally; the U.S. has become indispensable for India’s Indo-Pacific interests. Russia’s relative decline and its slide into junior partnership with China complicate India’s vision of the future order.
• The S-400 deal drew CAATSA warnings and strained ties for a period; India proceeded as a mark of strategic autonomy. Full SCO membership in 2017 generated further suspicion in US circles.
• Russia’s share of India’s arms imports fell from 60 per cent before the Ukraine war to 45 per cent. Russia and China jointly rejected a consensus statement on Ukraine during India’s G20 presidency — the Sino-Russian “no-limits” partnership making Moscow junior to India’s principal rival.

Russia, China and India

• In the early twenty-first century Russia concluded that the West would never let it reclaim superpower status and that Western liberal policies would not work for it, and turned east — to India and especially China.
• Smita Purushottam → Russia massively increased military exports to China, supplying US$22 billion worth of armaments between 2000 and 2010; China extended a US$25 billion loan to build a spur from the EPSO II pipeline originally destined exclusively for the Pacific coast.
• Vidya Nadkarni → a friendly Russia was essential for China in the first decade of the century as Beijing sought control over Central Asian energy resources, transportation networks including parts of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and pipelines — reducing dependence on sea-routed supplies and petro-dollars as part of a strategy to edge the dollar out as the dominant reserve currency and establish primacy in the eastern hemisphere.
• Since the second decade, China has overtaken Russia in economic heft and diplomatic reach. In Central Asia, South Asia and Africa, Russia has become the junior partner, more so after the SCO, AIIB and the Belt and Road Initiative. Moscow turned to China after estrangement from the West over Ukraine; China is a major consumer of Russian energy; Russia has sought military assistance from China as part of the “no-limits” partnership declared by Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
• A Sino-Russian bloc presents a strategic dilemma for India, especially with Moscow as the subordinate partner. India wants Russia to be a leading pole in a multipolar order, not a junior partner to China.
• Countervailing logic → defence ties are unlikely to change much. Russia will not reduce dependence on India, which is its largest testing ground; as China supplies arms to developing nations and undercuts Russian influence, Russia will need India as a springboard to other developing markets despite India’s tilt to the United States.

Russia and Pakistan

• The 2016 exercise triggered public regret in India that a longstanding “best friend” was cosying up to the worst neighbour.
• Srinath Raghavan → the relationship, while of immense importance to India, was far from a fairy tale; Moscow’s approach was consistently shaped by strategic considerations. The 2016 exercise was not the first instance — during the 1962 war Moscow shared intelligence on India with Beijing.
• Origins of Russian realism — the rift with Beijing from 1959, refusal to support China in its territorial disputes with India, and the offer of MiG-21s; then, during 1962, telling the Chinese there was “no place for neutrality” while putting MiG supply on hold and sharing intelligence with Beijing. It was India’s turn toward the United States, with Nehru seeking support from Kennedy, that led Khrushchev to revert to his earlier stance.
• Moscow sought bridges with Pakistan: Lal Bahadur Shastri was shocked in May 1965 by Russia’s unwillingness to condemn the Pakistani incursion into the Rann of Kutch; at Tashkent the Russians leaned on India to revert to the status quo ante. Later the Soviets sought balance in South Asia, believing that India-Pakistan conflict would play to China’s advantage.
• Post-2014 — the lifting of a self-imposed arms embargo enabling the Mi-35 sale; Pavel Felgenhauer called it an “important, key change in Russian policy in the region,” while Russian diplomats described the negotiations as part of ongoing cooperation with Pakistan in defence and counterterrorism.
• Limits — there is limited enthusiasm in Moscow for a genuine, long-term, broad-based relationship with Pakistan, since strong ties with Europe, Central Asia, China, India and Iran already meet Russia’s needs.

India and the Ukraine Conflict

India’s position

• India abstained from voting on the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the annexation of Crimea and opposed Western sanctions; Indian officials declared that Russia had “legitimate interests” in Ukraine. India abstained on UNSC Resolution 2623 and on successive votes in the General Assembly and Human Rights Council.
• India’s declared positions urged “respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states,” called “for the immediate cessation of violence and hostilities,” regretted “that the path of diplomacy was given up,” urged states to “return to it,” and reiterated that “dialogue is the only answer to settling differences and disputes, however daunting that may appear at this moment.”
• Most Indian strategic elites would admit that diplomatic neutrality signifies what one Indian scholar has called “a subtle pro-Moscow position.” The tightrope walk has been described as “strategic ambivalence” — but it reflects a deliberate, if constrained, choice.

Why India took this position

• Sumit Ganguly → India’s decision to avoid a clear-cut position stems in considerable part from dependence on Russia across diplomatic, military and energy questions.
• Primary driver — China and Pakistan. New Delhi believes that preserving friendship with Moscow helps prevent deepening Russian ties with China and limits Russian temptations to build new ties with Pakistan.
• Historical reinforcement — Russia as a sturdy friend since 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev publicly declared support for Indian claims over Jammu and Kashmir while the West was ambivalent or opposed; six Soviet vetoes exercised on India’s behalf. India’s posture is consistent with its earlier forbearance over Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979).
• Energy — India is the world’s third-largest oil consumer with limited domestic reserves and high price sensitivity; discounted Russian crude addressed supply disruption and inflation. Arms — the arsenal is largely Soviet and Russian, ageing equipment requires modernisation, and hardware upgrades are slow.
• Historical ties and anti-colonial sentiment; Indian media at times portrays the United States as more responsible than Russia for destabilising Ukraine.

Assessments

“As Russia’s war in Ukraine unfolds, India’s national interests have so far dictated a position of formal neutrality.”

Ashley J. Tellis

• C. Raja Mohan → “India that long relied on Russia to provide a regional balance of power will have to rework its great power sums. This should not be too hard, given India’s improving relations with the US and Europe and its focus on diversifying its defence partnerships.” For Indian diplomacy, 2023 was as much about multilateral diplomacy as about adapting to a potentially historic shift in great power relations, with the endgame of the war the decisive variable.
• Shyam Saran → the crisis introduced a new element of discomfort as India seeks to maintain its traditional relationship with Russia without spoiling its growing partnership with the United States, and is uncomfortable with the tightening Russia-China embrace.
• Stanly Johny → for the West, an authoritarian Russia’s war on a “democratic” Ukraine is an affront to global democracy. Yet India, South Africa, Israel and Turkey all declined to join, partly because sanctions were unilateral and without UN approval; for them the war is a European problem rooted in the post-Cold War security architecture. The morality case falls flat given the invasion of Iraq (2003), the conversion of a UNSC no-fly zone in Libya into a full-scale intervention (2011), the illegal placement of US troops in Syria, and American recognition of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. There cannot be two sets of international morality — one for powerful countries and another for developing ones.
• Derek Grossman → “The bottom line is that India, as a great power, is unlikely to uphold the order in quite the same way as the West—if it does so at all. Much of this will depend on future international circumstances and the state of Indian domestic politics.”
• John Joseph Wilkins → “India has always had a tradition of balancing world powers, but this year we’ve seen the country’s foreign policy establishment possibly embrace an upgraded form of non-alignment. This has the potential to increase New Delhi’s global influence going forward.”
• Vaasu Sharma → “For India, the best-case scenario in the prevailing situation would be the initiation of the reconciliation process between Russia and the West as it is hoped that Russia’s peace with the West will not drive the former towards the Chinese camp…” Mishra → “If this initiative for peace is really pushed and Ukraine agrees to come to the negotiation table, the West could ask India to convince Russia to do the same due to India’s G20 role and special relationship with Moscow.”

Impact on India

• Samar Shrivastava → higher import bills for energy and fertilizers, adding to global inflation and prompting the RBI to raise rates in tandem with global rates; the net result was higher inflation and lower growth.
• Dharmashakti Joshi → “The conflict worsened the growth-inflation mix for India. It pushed up crude prices and caused supply side bottlenecks, thereby putting significant upward pressure on inflation. It also raised the fertiliser bill substantially and threatened to derail the budgetary math.” The fertiliser subsidy bill was expected to rise from ₹1.1 lakh crore in the Budget to ₹2.3-2.4 lakh crore. Consumer price inflation, averaging 4.5-5.5 per cent in the preceding fiscal year, was expected to end FY23 at 6.7 per cent.
• Offsetting gain — the West began to view India as a partner against China; multinationals building a China+1 strategy, most pronounced in pharma and specialty chemicals, with semiconductors and low-end manufacturing likely to follow.
• India’s diversification agenda — the National Hydrogen Mission and green hydrogen exports as a route to reducing hydrocarbon dependence; comprehensive FTAs sought with the EU, the United Kingdom and Canada, after deals with Australia and the UAE.

Views of Scholars, Theory & Policy — India–Russia

Theoretical perspectives

• Realism — India’s stance is driven by power dynamics and strategic interests; balancing regional stability and countering common rivals shapes the partnership.
• Alliance theory — historical alliances and shared interests in military and defence matters explain continued collaboration.
• Multipolarity — used to analyse how India and Russia manage their relationship amid the influence of China and the United States.

Policy suggestions

• Vidya Nadkarni → as long as India remains a major importer of Russian arms and remains important to Moscow as a hedge against a revisionist China, Russia is unlikely to jettison the friendship. On the Indian side, elite preference for autonomy, heavy dependence on Russian arms, and Moscow’s willingness to enter joint weapons production provide a strong impetus. At the regional level both share an interest in stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unless the strategic environment changes radically — an overtly revisionist China driving India into an American embrace, a tighter Russia-Pakistan nexus, or a seamless Sino-Russian anti-American condominium — the relationship is unlikely to wither on the vine.
• Boost bilateral economic ties beyond buyer-seller: defence, hydrocarbons and nuclear power favour Russia, so IT and ITES, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, where India is strong, should be encouraged; Russian investment should be sought in defence manufacturing for ‘Make in India’, and in infrastructure and space technology for Smart Cities and Digital India. Negotiations for the India-Eurasian Economic Union FTA should be expedited.
• Expedite the INSTC and launch the ‘Green Corridor’ project for customs facilitation.
• Nivedita Kapoor and Nandan Unnikrishnan support President Putin’s proposal for a “more extensive Eurasian partnership involving the EAEU and China, India, Pakistan and Iran”. The main challenge is the BRI, which Russia has joined and plans to link to the EAEU; India’s INSTC has languished and could be jointly energised.
• India can help address Russia’s demographic problem, particularly in the Far East, by providing workforce in agriculture and construction without permanent settlement, alongside investment in energy and other projects.
• Cooperate in the UN, BRICS, SCO, G20 and the East Asia Summit, while recognising that diverging goals driven by factors beyond the bilateral dimension will continue to pose challenges. Revitalise the earlier agreement on intelligence sharing for a joint counter-terrorism strategy; deepen scientific and technological relations; and use creative means to build the RIC platform.
• To stay relevant in the twenty-first century, both must broaden economic cooperation, promote balanced trade, and expand collaboration in energy transition, digital technologies and the Arctic.

India, Russia and the United States

• With Western sanctions on Russia, Sino-Russian relations have moved from enmity to détente and now entente.
• Manoj Joshi → India does not, and cannot, view deepening Sino-Russian relations as a zero-sum game. It engages both bilaterally and through the RIC grouping, the SCO and BRICS. Owing to the power imbalance, Russia frequently views India as a mechanism for balancing China.
• Sanctions after the annexation of Crimea (2014) and the invasion of Ukraine (2022) pushed Russia toward Chinese trade and investment. Russian investment in China is about $1 billion; Chinese investment in Russia is about ten times greater. China has extended economic influence westward into the Central Asian states through the SCO and the Belt and Road Initiative.
• Manoj Joshi → Russia created the Eurasian Economic Union as a defensive perimeter against Chinese pressure in the former Soviet space, yet China’s economic weight gives Beijing the upper hand in any EEU-China relationship.
• The civil nuclear deal made China uneasy; New Delhi has built substantial military ties with Washington while stopping short of alliance or full endorsement of American Indo-Pacific formulations.
• The Ukraine crisis places New Delhi in an awkward midpoint between Russia, a longstanding politico-military legacy partner, and the West, a growing partner in a multipolar context. It has revived debate about what non-alignment, repackaged as ‘strategic autonomy’, really means.
• Dual pressure — from Russia as traditional ally and from the U.S. as Quad partner. India’s economic interests lie largely with the U.S. and Europe; sentiment cannot substitute for interest calculation.