Vantage | Reason behind Putin's praise for India

Vladimir Putin cannot stop praising India. From hailing ‘Make in India’ to calling the G20 summit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal success, the Russian president has been making such statements throughout this year. The latest one came Friday. At the Valdai Discussion Club, Vladimir Putin delivered a keynote address. Though, it is an annual affair, usually with the same template, panning the West, blaming NATO and praising Russia, but this year, Putin was singing praises for India too.

G20 Summit was a "great success of PM Modi"- Vladimir Putin

Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club, Putin said the Delhi summit was a success "because the (Indian) prime minister managed to depoliticise the decisions that were made" there.#Russia | #India | #VladimirPutin |… pic.twitter.com/TN5UcHg5Xs

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) October 5, 2023

India hosted the G20 Leaders’ Summit last month which Putin did not attend. But now he is calling it a success. He lauded India for brokering consensus. Watch:

So why is the Russian president wooing india? One reason is the historical ties. The second is the current political atmosphere. Tensions with the West are at an all-time high. Russia is under multiple sanctions. The world is under pressure to pick sides. But India has remained neutral. It has called for peace. And it hasn’t stopped buying Russian oil. The West put a lot of pressure, but India refused to bow. India and Russia are old partners. We have a long history of military cooperation. Russia is India’s largest supplier of defence equipment. Even though the sales have dropped. In the past decade, Russian arms sales to India dropped by 65 per cent. In 2022 it was worth $1.3 billion. Meanwhile, defence sales from the US have jumped by 58 per cent. Last year, it was worth $219 million. Still a small figure compared to Russia, but the trend could have worried Putin. So while he’s praising India, he’s also issuing a warning of sorts, a warning for the West. He said: Don’t try to create a rift between India and Russia. “They are trying to cast everyone who is not ready to blindly follow these Western elites as the enemy - anyone. China, in certain situations. At a certain point in time, they tried to do the same with India. Now they are flirting, of course. We all understand this very well. We feel and see the situation in Asia. Everything is clear. I want to say that the Indian leadership is self-directed. It is led by the national interests. I think that those attempts make no sense.” But praise for India aside, much of what - Putin said - was along predictable lines. He slammed the West for creating its own rules. He talked about Russia’s mission to create a ‘New World’, and he defended the war in Ukraine. Many things stood out in his speech. The first was about nuclear warfare. Putin says Russia has successfully tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile. This is an experimental weapon - known as the Burevestnik. The NATO calls it skyfall. It is powered by a nuclear reactor. It is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. And it is said to have unlimited range. But very little is known about its capabilities, or the test that Putin is talking about. Further, Putin has said that Russia can withdraw its ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty. Moscow last tested a nuclear weapon in 1990. When it was part of the Soviet Union. Now Putin is talking about pulling out of the treaty. So does that mean Russia will conduct a nuclear test? “I am not ready now to say whether we should conduct nuclear tests or not. But to behave in a mirror way in relations with the United States - I repeat once again, they signed but did not ratify (the international nuclear test ban treaty), and we signed and ratified it - in principle, one can behave in a mirror way with the United States. But this is a question for State Duma (Russia’s lower house of parliament) deputies. In theory, this ratification could be revoked,” said the Russian president. He also spoke about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, the man who challenged Putin’s leadership in June - Prigozhin led an armed rebellion against Moscow. It was the first big threat to Putin’s rule in two decades. But midway, he stopped, he cracked a deal with the leadership, he was exiled to Belarus. And now he is dead- in a plane crash. All signs pointed at foul play by the Kremlin. But Putin suggests that the crash was caused by hand grenades detonating inside the plane. “The director of the investigative committee (Alexander Bastrykin) reported recently (to me) that hand grenade fragments were found in bodies of those killed in the air accident. There was no external impact on the plane - that’s the stated fact. That’s the result of expertise conducted by the investigative committee of the Russian federation,” said Putin. Of course, these are Putin’s claims, there is no evidence to prove them or suggest otherwise. And then, Putin talked about the war that he started in February last year. Moscow expected Kyiv to fall in three days, but 590 days later, the capital still stands. It’s now being called: The forever war. And that’s not necessarily a setback for Putin. The prolonged offensive is tiring the West. And the war fatigue has set in, the funding is drying, and the morale is dipping. So while Putin may not be winning the war against NATO. He’s not even losing it. 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.