PM Modi's visit to Russia: How New Delhi has navigated ties with Moscow amid Ukraine war

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Russia today.

Modi is making his first trip to Russia since the beginning of the Ukraine war.

He is set to reach Moscow on Monday and attend a private dinner with President Vladimir Putin.

His two-day visit slated for July 8 and 9 will see the 22nd India-Russia annual summit review ties between the two countries.

“The 22nd annual summit between India and Russia would provide an opportunity to the two leaders to review the whole range of bilateral issues, including defence, trade linkages, investment ties, energy cooperation, S&T (science and technology),” foreign secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told reporters in Delhi.

Modi’s previous visit to Russia came in 2019 when he attended an economic conclave in the Far East city of Vladivostok. He last travelled to Moscow in 2015.

Putin last met with Modi in September 2022 at a summit of the SCO in Uzbekistan. In 2021, Putin also traveled to New Delhi and held talks with the Indian leader.

But how has India navigated ties with Russia amid Ukraine war?

 Let’s take a closer look:

 The relationship

 Russia has had strong ties with India since the Cold War, and New Delhi’s importance as a trading partner for Moscow has grown since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022

Russia is a key supplier of cut-price oil and weapons to India, but its isolation from the West and growing friendship with China have impacted its time-honoured partnership with New Delhi.

The United States and its Western allies have in recent years cultivated ties with India as a bulwark against Beijing and its growing influence in the Asia-Pacific, while also pressuring it to distance itself from Russia.

Modi, who was returned to power last month, last visited Russia in 2019 and hosted President Vladimir Putin in New Delhi two years later, weeks before the invasion.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has “transformed” ties with India, said Swasti Rao, from a think tank funded by India’s defence ministry, the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

“There is no decline in goodwill between India and Russia per se,” she said.

“But there are challenges that have cropped up. These are external factors, which have been strong enough to bring in a paradigm shift in India-Russia bilateral issues,” she added.

Nandan Unnikrishnan of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation said the upcoming in-person meeting showed the two sides were looking for ways forward.

“There have been pressures on India, and there have been pressures on the India-Russia relationship,” Unnikrishnan said.

“Face-to-face interactions help in working out positions,” he added. “I’m sure Modi would like an assessment from Putin on the Ukraine war.”

“Russia is a great power … It is a member of the Security Council with the veto and we in India remember that the veto has been exercised in our favour several times in the past,” Unnikrishnan told Arab News.

New Delhi has shied away from explicit condemnation of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and has abstained on United Nations resolutions censuring Moscow.

But Russia’s war in Ukraine has also had a human cost for India.

New Delhi said in February it was pushing Russia to release some of its citizens who had signed up for “support jobs” with the Russian military, following reports some were killed after being forced to fight in Ukraine.

The China question

Moscow’s deepening ties with Beijing have also raised concerns for New Delhi.

China and India, the world’s two most populous nations, are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia.

India is part of the Quad grouping with the United States, Japan and Australia that positions itself against China’s growing assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region.

The United States and the European Union accuse China of selling components and equipment that have strengthened Russia’s military industry – allegations Beijing strenuously denies.

That leaves India with a dilemma.

“The deepening of the strategic alignment between Russia and China is uncomfortable for New Delhi because it’s like your best friend sleeping with the enemy,” Rao told Bloomberg. “Given that we have these concerns it makes sense for the prime minister to go there and talk to Putin at the highest level.”

Their “relationship has to evolve”, said Rao.

“Some say India should strongly engage with Russia so it doesn’t fall into the lap of China,” said Rao. “Others would say, that ship has sailed.”

Unnikrishnan told Arab News it seemed like New Delhi and Moscow’s ties are ‘drifting.’

“Our relationship with the US has been growing rapidly, becoming closer and closer … It was giving rise to all kinds of speculation that distance from Russia is growing. I think the PM felt that now it’s time to remove such a perception,” he told Arab News.

“India has multiple partners, and it will not have a relationship based on dictation by any third party. It will maintain relationships depending on the national interest.”

Modi on Thursday skipped the summit of a security grouping created by Moscow and Beijing to counter Western alliances.

Modi sent External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at its annual meeting in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana. The meeting is being attended by Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

However, others like Jaishankar deny that the relationship has changed.

Deccan Chronicle quoted Jaishankar as writing in Why Bharat Matters that the relationship is the “subject of attention not because it has changed but because it has not.”

Jaishankar earlier said the Moscow-New Delhi ties are the ‘stable factor’ in international relations.

“The visit of a leader of a state such as India demonstrates that Russia isn’t facing international isolation, and for the Kremlin this is very important,” Aleksei Zakharov, an expert on India based in Moscow told Bloomberg.

Defence

New Delhi and Moscow have forged a tight relationship since the Cold War, and Russia was for a long time India’s biggest arms supplier.

In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union was the source of about 70 per cent of Indian army weapons, 80 per cent of its air force systems and 85 pe cent of its navy platforms.

India bought its first aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, from Russia in 2004. It had served in the former Soviet Union and later in the Russian navy.

While the Ukraine war has stretched Russia’s arms supplies, and India is eyeing other sources.

New Delhi has been reducing its dependency on Russian arms and diversifying its defense procurements, buying more from the US, Israel, France and Italy.

Russia’s share of Indian imports of weapons has shrunk considerably in recent years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

It dropped from 76 percent in 2009-13 to 36 percent in 2019-23, SIPRI said, noting France is now a close second, providing 33 percent.

“India has instead looked to Western suppliers, most notably France and the USA, and its own arms industry,” SIPRI said, adding that its arms procurement plans “seemingly do not include any Russian options”.

Rao said the Ukraine war had “accelerated” India’s push to diversify its defence purchases.

“The Ukraine war has become one of grinding attrition,” she said.

“There are genuine concerns about Russia’s export capabilities, and its focus and priorities.”

Oil

At the same time, India has also become a major buyer of discounted Russian oil, providing a much-needed export market for Moscow after it was cut off from traditional buyers in Europe.

As per Bloomberg, India is buying more than 2 million barrels of oil per day.

That’s 20 times more than it was buying in 2021.

That has dramatically reshaped energy ties, with India saving itself billions of dollars while bolstering Moscow’s war coffers.

India’s month-on-month imports of Russian crude “increased by eight percent in May, to the highest levels since July 2023”, according to commodity tracking data compiled by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Bloomberg quoted rating agency ICRA as saying that New Delhi’s oil purchases from Moscow saved it $13 billion over the past two years.

However, this has also resulted in India’s trade deficit with Russia rising to a little over $57 billion in the past financial year.

“Russian crude comprised 41 percent of India’s total crude imports in May, and with new agreements in place to conduct payments in rubles, the trade might grow significantly,” the research centre said.

Trade

As per Business Today, trade between India and Russia was at $65.7 billion in the financial year ending March 2024 – a 33 per cent increase from 2023 – of which India’s imports accounting for $61.43 billion.

Russia is now India’s fourth-largest trading partner – after China, the United States and the UAE.

Jaishankar in May, speaking at the annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), said this is not a ‘temporary phenomenon.’

“For long, we have looked at Russia from a political or security perspective,” he said. “As that country turns eastwards, fresh economic opportunities are presenting themselves…the spike in our trade and new areas of cooperation should not be regarded as a temporary phenomenon.”

India has also been keen to boost exports of pharmaceutical, machinery and other goods to Russia.

Kwatra told The Hindu, “In every sector, whether it is in agriculture, manufacturing, pharmaceutical or services, we are trying to maximise Indian exports to Russia so that the trade imbalance can be addressed.”

He added that the payment mechanisms between New Delhi and Moscow, which had been impacted by sanctions, were “working fine” currently.

As per Business Today, the two nations are currently talking about signing an investment treaty.

A free trade agreement between India and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union is also on the horizon.

What do experts say?

Experts say the personal relationship between Modi and Putin has also been a huge factor over the past few years.

“Both the leaders have praised each other, their policies and despite some differences on geopolitical issues and Russia’s Ukraine invasion the bonhomie remains,” a piece in News18 noted.

The article noted Putin’s recent fulsome praise of Modi.

“(I) cannot imagine that Modi could be frightened, intimidated or forced to take any actions, steps, decisions that would be at variance with the national interests of India and the Indian people,” Putin said.

They add that New Delhi and Moscow need each other.

“Russia is the largest country in the world. It has a (large) number of natural resources, and we are an economy that is growing, and we will soon require much larger amounts of natural resources, so for a variety of reasons, Russia is important … and it plays an important role in maintaining multipolarity in Asia,” Unnikrishnan added.

“This is about maintaining the status quo,” Zakharov, the Moscow-based India specialist told Bloomberg. “Ties are not deteriorating but there’s no particular drive to improve relations either.”

Ex-Indian diplomat Anil Wadhwa told DW both countries will be eager to maintain their relationship.

Cooperation in oil and gas and defence would be on the agenda, Wadhwa added.

“Equally important will be the Russian stance on the BRICS’ expansion, the relationship with China and prospects for cooperation in new areas like connectivity between the two countries,” he added.

With inputs from agencies