PM Modi in Moscow? How the expected visit can be a geostrategic masterstroke

There is a constant buzz in the media currently about a possible visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Russia in July. This has not been officially confirmed by New Delhi yet, but preparations are reportedly underway in the Kremlin to host PM Modi during his first visit to the country after its war with Ukraine started two years ago. This visit will take place almost weeks after the peace conference in Switzerland where India maintained a low-key presence so as not to alienate its good friend Russia. Interestingly, this will also be the first bilateral visit of PM Modi to any country after winning the electoral mandate third time in a row.

The choice is important because in both his previous tenures in power after winning elections in 2014 and 2019, he had chosen countries from the neighbourhood for his first bilateral visits. In 2014, he had visited Bhutan; and, in 2019 he had conducted a tour of Maldives and Sri Lanka, signalling his commitment to the neighbourhood first policy. This time, his first foreign visit was to Italy but it was to attend the G7 summit so when the Russia tour takes place, it will be technically the first bilateral visit of Modi 3.0.

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This visit will be part of the annual India-Russia summit and comes almost five years after PM Modi’s last visit to Russia in 2019 when he had visited Vladivostok to attend the Eastern Economic Forum. Even the annual summit was on hold for two consecutive years, first due to Covid-19 pandemic and later due to the conflict in Eastern Europe. Before that President Putin had visited India in 2021 for the annual summit.

While the official confirmation of this upcoming visit is still due and till then the agenda will also remain under speculation, but one thing that is likely to be discussed during the visit would be a military logistics pact between the two countries. Just recently, Russia has announced that it is considering upgrading military cooperation with India in the form of a military logistics agreement. The RELOS or Reciprocal Exchange Logistics Agreement is a long-pending pact between the two countries which would enable mutual logistical support to each other’s military during joint operations and long-distance missions. As a part of this, Indian warships and aircrafts can benefit from the Russian logistics network for fuel replenishment, repairs and maintenance and any other such necessities. This will not only cut down on cost for Indian missions but also enable the Indian military to undertake operations far and wide.

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India has a similar arrangement with multiple other countries such as Australia, Japan and France; and, most importantly, it has the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement with the United States.

Russia is in the stage of finalising the agreement and one can expect some progress on this during the PM’s upcoming visit. Once finalised, it will provide a significant edge to India’s outreach efforts beyond its immediate neighbourhood. Most importantly, it will enable India’s forays into the Arctic ocean region which has emerged to be a significant geopolitical theatre in recent years. The Arctic region is home to vast untapped amounts of natural resources which will be available once the ice melts down due to climate change. China has shown an early interest in this region going to the extent of declaring itself as a ‘near-Arctic state’, but sadly the lines on map don’t play very well in the favour of Chinese claims. This still hasn’t stopped China from seeking a foothold to corner a bigger share in mineral resources, access shipping lanes on priority basis or claim a greater stake in affairs of the region.

In such a scenario, India will be an interesting player as the RELOS agreement would give it access to Russian logistics in the region, thus enabling it to make rapid strides. It will be a win-win equation for both countries as India is willing to back Russian forays in the Indian Ocean in return — a region which is India’s own strategic backyard. Russia has set up a naval base in Sudan, a key country in the IOR with the region featuring as a ‘key priority area’ in Russia’s 2015 Maritime Doctrine. Russia sees itself as a great power for which supremacy in the oceans is a goal worth aspiring for. It had even explicitly mentioned India as its choice of strategic partner in this maritime doctrine.

Interestingly, the decision to visit Russia as the first choice of foreign visit by PM Modi as well as this logistics agreement are both laced with a larger message to the global audience. Of late, the growing proximity between Russia and China has made many Indian analysts discard Russia’s importance for India’s strategic goals. This is also the stand of the West, which is anxious with Russia and China’s resolve to pursue a ‘no limits partnership’. However, nothing can be farther than truth if one takes the Beijing-Moscow bonhomie to be set in stone. Putin’s visit to North Korea and Vietnam last week was closely watched by many as a direct challenge to the US’ alliance system in the region but what some have clearly missed to see is that it was also an assertion of Russia’s status as an independent power and not a ‘junior partner’ of China that everyone seems to have declared it to be. Both North Korea and Vietnam have a rocky past with China, not to mention Hanoi’s counter claims in South China Sea. Thus the outreach by Putin was definitely an attempt to show Beijing that Moscow also has options. This assumes greater significance when Russia’s displeasure with regard to Beijing making fast inroads into Central Asia, Russia’s strategic backyard, is also taken into account. Moscow has always wanted India to play a balancing role in the region; the upcoming visit by PM Modi as well as the logistics agreement seem to be an extension of it. Remember, for Russia, China’s forays in the Arctic region is also unsettling. On the surface, both have a common cause in criticising NATO’s involvement in the region. The Polar Silk Road project that they signed in 2017 is also an example of Sino-Russian cooperation in the Northern Sea route, an alternative connectivity passage between Europe and Far East besides the Suez Canal route. But even here Russia hasn’t completely put its proverbial eggs in one basket. It is actively looking to court India as well, as evident in the signing of the RELOS agreement.

For India, the agreement as well as the visit by Modi are perfectly timed. In Modi 1.0, India had shed the non-aligned hangover to sign similar agreements with US. In Modi 2.0, India had started showing strong signs of balancing China both internally as well as externally. Modi 3.0 has come after a long effort by the Western interference machinery to unseat a strong government in New Delhi. Few days into power and the Khalistan factor is still going strong, bringing irritants on a daily basis into India’s relationship with the West. Hence the task cut out for Modi 3.0 is to leverage whatever space is available to build its own strengths without getting totally dependent on any one actor.

The choice of Russia as first country for visit and the signing of military pact will make for great optics. After all, no one can be trusted too much in the global game of politics.

The author is a New Delhi-based commentator on geopolitics and foreign policy. She holds a PhD from the Department of International Relations, South Asian University. You may follow her on X: @TrulyMonica. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.