When Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Delhi this week, he and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are expected to put up a convivial front.
That is in part to affirm that the long-standing ties between Russia and India, one of the Kremlin’s most reliable relationships, remains solid. But it is also a signal to Washington.
Amid the serious challenges caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine, President Donald Trump has been pressing both men to leverage some sort of peace. And for India in particular, that has meant new, punishing tariffs that aim to force it to stop purchasing Russian oil.
Why We Wrote This
It may look like business as usual when Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi meet in Delhi this week, but the Russian and Indian leaders are under pressure to show they won’t be swayed by Donald Trump.
This visit will give Mr. Putin and Mr. Modi, whose direct contacts have been frequent and invariably warm, an opportunity to show that both men have alternatives to succumbing under Mr. Trump’s pressures.
“This is a very dramatic summit. Because of the sanctions war, and all the other global tensions, they both have to act unruffled,” says Sergei Strokan, an international affairs columnist with the Moscow business daily Kommersant. “It’s about much more than oil. Modi and Putin are both national leaders who can’t be seen to compromise on sovereignty. They may have to take losses, but they need to show they can’t be intimidated.”
An old partnership
Moscow’s tight relationship with Delhi goes back to Soviet times, when a newly independent India was given economic aid and advice to implement a largely state-led industrialization, and India’s strong stance of nonalignment in a world divided by the Cold War dovetailed neatly with Moscow’s ideological interests.
After the USSR’s collapse, the political relationship continued and Russia remained India’s top arms supplier. In recent years, they’ve found fresh foreign policy rapport in pursuing the goal of a multipolar global order to replace the Western-led unipolar one, and have played important roles in developing alternative political and trade associations, particularly the BRICS+, among countries of the Global South.
But the bilateral relationship has been running on inertia for some time. Durable economic cooperation has failed to develop, and Russia’s growing partnership with China, whose relations with India have been tense, has made many Indians uneasy. When Russia invaded Ukraine almost four years ago, Indian leaders privately made it clear to their Russian counterparts that they did not approve, although India outwardly maintained a stance of neutrality and even stepped up purchases of discounted Russian oil – in self-interest, not as a gesture of support.
Deeper trends do not favor stronger Indo-Russian ties. India’s rapidly developing $4 trillion economy increasingly looks Westward for modern technology and models to follow while, outside of a few sectors, Russia’s $2 trillion economy has little to offer. India’s burgeoning middle class tends to be well-educated, democracy-minded, English-speaking, and increasingly attracted to Western culture, consumerism, and forms of political discourse.
“Even in Soviet times, the U.S. was the lodestar for Indian elites,” says Nandan Unnikrishnan, an expert with the Observer Research Foundation in Delhi. “Today, there are few Indian middle-class families who don’t have someone living in the West. And Indians in the diaspora tend to be high earners who live well, and this creates aspiration.”
“Playing a clever game”?
Enter President Trump, who some say has thrown decades of gradual U.S. diplomatic progress with India into turmoil.
Mr. Modi had hoped that by cultivating good relations with Mr. Trump he could extend India’s profitable trade relations with the U.S. Unlike most of India’s trading partners – including China and Russia – the U.S. is one of the few where India enjoys a massive trade surplus. But Mr. Trump’s hardball negotiating tactics of imposing high tariffs, aimed at breaking open India’s highly protected domestic market, have created a dilemma for Mr. Modi.
Mr. Trump’s recent imposition of 50% tariffs on most Indian imports, ostensibly aimed at punishing India for buying Russian oil, has piqued Indian pride and led Mr. Modi to seek warmer relations with China. Mr. Trump’s mercurial style also creates opportunities for Mr. Putin, who can stress Russia’s long-standing reliability as a friendly partner.
Vladimir Smirnov/Sputnik/Reuters
“Trump is playing a clever game with India,” says Mr. Unnikrishnan. “He wants to export more energy, and he needs to spike prices in order to make U.S. shale oil and gas more competitive. So trying to squeeze Russia out of the market makes sense. It’s not about Ukraine, it’s about rebalancing trade with India in favor of the U.S.”
Last month, India signed an unprecedented deal to import 2.2 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas from the U.S. Meanwhile, reports suggest that some Indian refineries have curtailed their imports of Russian oil to avoid being hit by the new U.S. tariffs. Also last month, India finalized a $93 million deal for U.S. weapons, part of a long-term effort to diversify away from Russian arms suppliers.
Doing new deals
Mr. Putin will have the advantage of a well-prepared agenda that will, beyond optics, project the image of a dynamically improving relationship.
Analysts expect the agenda to be broad, but say that Mr. Putin is likely to pitch the long-term benefits to India if it continues to buy Russian oil at a steep discount. India will place at least one fresh order for Russian weaponry, a $1.2 billion contract for more S-400 air defense systems, whose performance in the recent Indo-Pakistani conflict Indian generals have praised.
In addition to offering more discounted oil, Mr. Putin can appeal to India’s increasingly nationalist economic strategy by offering more joint ventures like a recently signed deal for Indian aeronautic firm HAL to build the Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional passenger airliner in India. India is keen to modernize its industry by absorbing high-tech from more developed countries, and the Russians have shown a willingness to share some of their best technologies in aviation and defense.
The Russians are also keen to link their national payment system with that of India. Doing so would greatly facilitate trade and travel between the two countries, but it would also risk Western secondary sanctions against Indian banks that cooperate with sanctioned Russian ones.
Analysts point to a surge in Indian workers choosing to come to Russia to take advantage of Russia’s wartime labor shortage, as another potential driver of closer Indo-Russian relations.
“While the West is closing down diplomatic relations with Russia, India is opening two new consulates, in addition to the two it already has, in order to service a growing Indian diaspora across Russia,” says Mr. Strokan.
Nivedita Kapoor, an assistant professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, says the main obstacle to a greater flow of Indian workers and business investors into the country is Russia’s own complicated legal restrictions, especially its byzantine migration laws.
“In conversations I’ve had with people who come to Russia for work, they don’t list the war as a deterrent for staying in Russia,” she says. “As long as they feel safe, it’s not their top concern.”
But the war does figure heavily in Mr. Putin’s chances of putting the Indo-Russian relationship on a solid new footing. He is likely to be questioned anxiously by his Indian hosts about the chances for the current diplomatic process to bring a swift end to the war.
“India would dearly love for peace to break out,” says Mr. Unnikrishnan. “Among other things, it would ease our situation with the U.S. We wouldn’t have to look over our shoulders to see how the U.S. is reacting to everything we do with Russia. A workable relationship between the U.S. and Russia would also help India navigate the international waters better. When there is tension between the U.S. and Russia, the only winner is China.”
