Dhaka, Bangladesh Global:Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Russia next week, marking his first visit to Moscow since the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Modi, who was returned to power last month as leader of the world’s most populous country, is walking a fine line between maintaining a longstanding partnership with Moscow while courting closer Western security ties.
The Ukraine war has drawn scrutiny to Russia’s close ties with India, as Kyiv’s Western partners urge Modi’s government to condemn the invasion and put pressure on the Kremlin.
New Delhi has so far refrained from explicitly condemning Russia for its actions in Ukraine. It has also abstained on United Nations resolutions criticizing Moscow.
Modi’s visit to Russia “aims to showcase India’s strategic independence,” said Gulshan Sachdeva, professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Center for European Studies in New Delhi, told DW.
“While it further strengthens bilateral ties, it will be closely watched internationally amid growing tensions with Russia.”
Shanthie Mariet D’Souza, founder and president of Mantraya, an independent research forum, told DW that Modi’s trip “will raise concerns in the West.”
But, she said, “New Delhi has always used the rationale of ‘strategic autonomy’ to maintain ties with non-Western countries.”
Ahead of Modi’s visit, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar emphasized the strong historical India-Russia cooperation and the significant growth in their economic relationship.
“It is a way of taking stock of any relationship...one of the biggest changes has been, that our economic relationship with Russia has grown tremendously...at the leadership level, it will be a great opportunity for PM Modi and President [Vladimir] Putin to sit down and directly talk to each other,” he told the news agency ANI.
India has longstanding political and strategic ties with Russia dating back to the Cold War era.
Moscow was for a long time India’s biggest arms supplier.
But Russia’s share of Indian weapon imports has shrunk considerably in recent years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), dropping from as high as 76% in 2009-13 to 36% in 2019-23.
India has sought to diversify its foreign sources of military gear in recent years, increasingly buying arms from Western countries like France and the US.
Over the past couple of years, India has also boosted its purchases of discounted Russian oil.
The development has provided a much-needed export market for Moscow after it was cut off from traditional buyers in Europe.
That has dramatically reshaped energy ties, with India saving billions of dollars while bolstering Moscow’s coffers.
Anil Wadhwa, a former Indian diplomat, told DW that both sides will be keen to continue their partnership and increase investments in each other’s economies despite the threat of Western sanctions.
He said that cooperation in oil and gas as well as defense will be high on the agenda of Modi and Putin.
“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.”
India looks warily at China-Russia ties
Sachdeva said Modi and Putin would likely elevate India-Russia ties to the next level due to increased energy trade and the operationalization of transport corridors.
“India is concerned that Western pressure on Russia is causing Moscow to become increasingly dependent on China,” he said, adding: “India does not support the Western objective of a Russian ‘strategic defeat,’ believing that a stronger Russia is essential for maintaining a multipolar world.”
The view among India’s foreign policy establishment is that New Delhi will find itself in a position of vulnerability if Russia emerges from its war in Ukraine defeated, weakened, and more beholden to China.
Moscow’s deepening ties with Beijing since the start of the Ukraine war have already raised concerns for New Delhi.
China and India, the world’s two most populous nations, have territorial disputes which have led to skirmishes along their shared border.
Both New Delhi and Beijing are also geostrategic rivals competing for political and economic influence in Asia.
“China is something that dominates the Indian strategic mind-space. A formal Russia-China alliance is a worst-case scenario for India … We should exert all our energy to ensure this kind of scenario doesn’t happen,” Pankaj Saran, former Indian deputy national security advisor told a discussion hosted in April by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).
Stay tuned for latest news and updates bangladeshglobal.com Log in to get breaking news and hot topics of the day:www.bangladeshglobal.com
