Despite stable India-Russia ties, West remains a challenge for New Delhi

India’s External Affairs Minister (EAM), S Jaishankar paid a somewhat long five-day visit to Russia from December 25 to 29, 2023. The duration of the visit itself is an indication of the range and depth of the bilateral partnership in the midst of an increasingly fractious global scenario. His last visit to Russia was in November 2022. That was for only two days when he met his counterpart Russian Foreign Minister (FM) Sergey Lavrov and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Trade and Industry Denis Manturov, who also co-chair, along with Jaishankar, the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, and Scientific Cooperation. The highlight of the current visit was EAM’s meeting with President Putin, which is an opportunity and privilege that is granted to a very select number of foreign ministers. EAM did not get to meet Putin during his last visit in November 2022. The setting India and the Soviet Union shared a special relationship of trust and confidence during the Cold War years. The first decade after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 witnessed some turbulence in bilateral ties between India and the successor state, Russia. However, since 2000, when the two countries signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement during the first visit of President Vladimir Putin to India in October 2000, bilateral relations have been on an upward trajectory. The relationship was subsequently upgraded to a Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership during Putin’s visit to India in 2010. It was also agreed during the visit in 2000 to hold annual summits between the two countries, alternately in India and Russia. Twenty-one annual summits were held from 2000 until 2021. The only year when the summit did not take place was 2020, ostensibly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Summits did not take place in 2022 and 2023 either, apparently due to Russia’s pre-occupation with the conflict in Ukraine in 2022 and because India was tied up with the responsibility of the G20 Presidency in 2023. However, in the warm and effusive interaction between President Putin and EAM Jaishankar on December 27, 2023, the former invited his ‘’dear friend, Prime Minister Modi’’ to visit Russia in 2024. This invitation was accepted on behalf of PM Modi by Jaishankar, who said that PM Modi looks forward to visiting Russia in 2024. The fact that regular summits have been held for most of the period since this highest-level institutional mechanism was put in place is testimony to the high importance that the two countries and their leaders attach to the partnership. In view of the growing acrimony and polarisation in global affairs in recent years between the East (Russia and China) and the West (USA, Europe, Japan, Australia), as well as the North (Developed) and South (Developing/Global South), strong and steady relations between India and Russia are a factor of peace and stability in international relations. While leaders in India have changed over the last 23 years since the Strategic Partnership was signed in 2000, leadership in Russia has stayed in the hands of President Putin. He can be termed one of the prime architects of modern-day partnerships between the two countries. On the Indian side, PM Modi has played a critical role in keeping the relationship stable and consistent over the last nine years, when the world has witnessed cataclysmic changes in relations between different major power centres. In these unpredictable times, PM Modi has guided bilateral ties with sure and firm hands. As with the Soviet Union, strong relations with Russia have been a key pillar of India’s foreign policy. The visit During his interactions with Deputy PM Manturov and FM Lavrov, the EAM had a comprehensive exchange of views on bilateral cooperation in trade and economics, energy, defence, connectivity, cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and cooperation between regions of the two countries. He also shared perspectives on global and regional developments, including multilateral cooperation. Three documents relating to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, an MoU on cooperation in pharmaceuticals and healthcare, and a protocol on Foreign Office Consultations were signed during the visit. India and Russia decided to expand their civilian nuclear cooperation, with Moscow willing to share technology for a small modular reactor used in power generation, even as both sides indicated their intention to push towards the completion of Phase 1 of the 6,000 MW Kudankulam nuclear power project in Tamil Nadu. The small modular reactors are advanced nuclear reactors with a power generation capacity of 75 MW to 300 MW. The two sides also decided to work determinedly to commission reactors 3 and 4 while speeding up the work on reactors 5 and 6 at the Kudankulam nuclear project at a time when the US Westinghouse-supported 6,600 MW Kovvada nuclear project and the French Areva-supported 9,900 MW Jaitapur nuclear project are stalled over price and other negotiations. Only reactors 1 and 2 of Kudankulam are operational at the moment, providing 2,000 MW of electricity to the state of Tamil Nadu. Jaishankar’s visit to Russia came at a time when the latter takes over the presidency of the BRICS platform on January 1, 2024. This development assumes significance in the context of the moves to expand the membership of the body, with Pakistan having expressed an interest in joining it. It will be India’s endeavour to keep Pakistan out of the grouping for as long as possible, as it has very little, if anything, to offer to strengthen the organisation. Russia’s cooperation will be helpful in this context. At the press conference between the two foreign ministers, FM Lavrov said that Russia is ‘’respectful of India’s aspirations’’ to diversify its sources of defence equipment and supplies. He said that Russia is keen to support India’s ‘’Make in India’’ initiative to increasingly manufacture defence equipment domestically. He said that Russia was willing to share its technology for manufacturing modern weaponry with India. It appears that the two countries are looking at future joint ventures in the military systems on the lines of the Brahmos missile and AK-203 rifle projects under the “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) rubric. One of the areas of a possible joint venture is the manufacture of Kamov 226 T multi-purpose helicopters. Russia supplies nearly 45 percent of Indian military hardware. The two sides need to firm up spare parts supplies that have been hit by delays due to Russia’s war in Ukraine. While three out of five S-400 surface-to-air missile systems have been delivered by Russia to India, the balance is yet to be provided. New Delhi is also looking at receiving an Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine on a long-term lease from Moscow in 2025. Discussions were held between the two sides on increasing the usage of the International North South Transport Corridor as well as operationalising the Chennai-Vladivostok corridor, a decision on which was taken during the visit of PM Modi to Vladivostok for the Far Eastern Forum in 2019. In the backdrop of Iran-backed Houthis attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, talks were also held to explore the Northern Sea Polar Route through the Arctic Sea. One fallout of global warming caused by the climate crisis is that the Northern Sea Route for commercial shipping could be usable for a larger part of the year without fear of encountering ice and inclement weather. While India has investments in the coal, oil and gas sector in Russia, it was able to obtain crude from Russia in 2022 and ’23 at discounted rates to ensure that the oil prices it had to pay did not go through the roof due to the Ukraine war. India-Russia trade ties witnessed exponential growth in 2022 to US$ 50 billion, principally on the back of increased oil and coal imports by India. The volume of bilateral trade is likely to increase further in 2023. The expanding commercial ties have, however, hit a roadblock in the absence of an appropriate and stable payment mechanism for settling accounts. Trading in each other’s national currencies has not worked out satisfactorily. The two sides will have to be innovative to find a solution to this hurdle so that bilateral commercial and economic ties can operate at their optimum. India also needs to increase its exports to Russia. During the visit, EAM announced that negotiations on the FTA between the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and India, which had stalled some time ago due to the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, will be resumed in the second half of January 2024. The FTA, when concluded, can be expected to give a strong impetus to commercial ties between India and the constituent members of the EEU, of which Russia is the most important entity. Conclusion The rather long visit of the EAM to Russia was a huge shot in the arm for India-Russia relations. As noted above, annual summits between the two countries have not been held for the last two years. The two foreign ministers have, however, been meeting regularly and frequently to keep the relationship on an even keel with Putin at the G20 Summit in September 2022. India-Russia ties (and before that, India-Soviet Union ties) have been one of the most stable between major powers. While relations between Russia and China, Russia and the West, or India and China and India and the West have gone through many ups and downs over the last 70 years, ties between India and Russia have continued to be firm and steady. Strong ties between India and Russia are beneficial for Russia, as they provide it with greater strategic space while navigating its relations with China. They send out a clear message that Russia has sturdy relations with dependable powers. Without the resolute partnership of a major power like India, Russia could find itself totally dependent on China. Similarly for India, it is a critical partnership, not only because of the legacy relationship and India’s import of significant quantities of its defence requirements from Russia, as well as the import of oil and gas, but also because of the strategic connotations of the relationship. While providing additional strategic space to Russia to maintain its independent agency with China, strong and steady India-Russia ties also ensure that China and Russia don’t become enmeshed in an alliance to the detriment of India and the world. The growing closeness between India and Russia could, however, pose a challenge to India in taking forward its relations with the West, particularly the US. Jaishankar’s fulsome and lavish description of India-Russia ties in the press conference with Lavrov and in his address to the Indian community would have been taken note of in the West. India has made a conscious decision that its most consequential partnership is with the US and other Western countries like Japan, Europe and Australia. India will need to ensure that its growing engagement with Russia does not in any way damage its expanding and deepening partnership with the West. This will be a formidable challenge that India must successfully confront in 2024. The writer is executive council member, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, president, Institute of Global Studies, Distinguished Fellow, Ananta Aspen Centre, and former Ambassador of India to Kazakhstan, Sweden and Latvia. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.