Putin and Modi to meet amid politically treacherous times for Russia and India | India

When Vladimir Putin last set foot in India almost four years ago, the world order looked materially different. During this visit, which lasted only five hours due to the Covid epidemic, Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed economic and military cooperation and reaffirmed their special relations.

Three months later, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine would turn it into a global pariah, isolating Russia from the world and restricting Putin’s international travel.

The last visit was also a few years before Donald Trump was re-elected and threw Delhi into turmoil by upsetting US-India relations, which had been closely nurtured for years, with incendiary rhetoric and some of the world’s most punitive import tariffs.

Against this turbulent geopolitical environment, analysts emphasized the importance of Putin’s visit to India to meet Modi on Thursday, both as a symbol of the enduring relationship between the countries and as a message that neither will be intimidated by US pressure.

The summit coincides with a critical juncture for both countries. Putin arrived in Delhi after rejecting the latest Ukrainian peace proposal proposed by the US, confident that the recent advances of Russian forces on the battlefield had strengthened his hand.

For Russia, “the importance of this visit lies primarily in its realization,” said Petr Topychkanov, senior researcher at the Moscow-based Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“This will signal Russia’s return to something resembling normal international relations,” Topychkanov said. “Russia is no longer worried about the risks of political isolation.”

For India, there are even greater risks. As Hudson Institute research fellow Aparna Pande puts it, Delhi is grappling with the most unfavorable geopolitical climate in recent years, thanks to “a semi-isolationist America, a weaker Russia, and a very strong China.”

In a notable sign of the tightrope India has to walk, on the eve of Putin’s arrival, a joint opinion piece by the French ambassador, the German high commissioner and the British high commissioner to India appeared in the Times of India titled “Russia does not appear serious about peace”.

This prompted a harsh response from India’s foreign ministry, which said that “advising the public on India’s relations with a third country is not acceptable diplomatic practice.”

‘China remains the biggest threat to India’

India’s relations with Russia date back to the cold war and have remained well-established ever since; Russia remains India’s largest defense supplier. It’s an alliance that Western governments long tolerated, even after Putin’s actions in Ukraine, but Trump’s return to the White House signaled a very different approach.

Over the last three years, the US and Europe have turned a blind eye to India becoming one of the biggest buyers of cheap Russian oil, despite Western sanctions. But after the US President’s peace efforts in Ukraine failed earlier this year, Trump began accusing India of financing Russia’s invasion. He openly pressured Delhi to halt purchases of Russian oil, resulting in punitive additional US tariffs of 25 percent on imports from India.

In Delhi, which has pursued a multilateral foreign policy since independence and reacted poorly to any foreign intervention, Trump’s perceived interference and attempts at pressure were met with anger and led to the worst decline in US-India relations in years.

In response, Pande said India had reverted to its default “hedging” mode in its unorthodox alliances, “signaling to the US that it has multiple options and waiting to see where it all falls”. The last meeting between Putin and Modi took place just three months ago, with Chinese premier Xi Jinping; here the three leaders were photographed holding hands and joking; It was an image that sparked Trump’s anger.

But India has other pressing priorities in its relations with Russia; that is, the huge superpower located on the border of the fiery north and northeast. “From India’s perspective – despite all the rumors that Russia is a great and loyal friend – the real reason why the relationship is important is geography,” Pande said. “China remains the biggest threat to India for the foreseeable future, and since the Soviet Union, India has always relied on Russia as a continental balancer against China.”

Pande said the increasingly close “unlimited partnership” between Moscow and Beijing has shaken India and led them to hope of finding a way “to prevent Russia from getting too close to China and to ensure that it can rely on Moscow to put pressure on the Chinese.”

This also led India to move away from its dependence on Russia, especially in the field of defence. For decades, around 70% of India’s defense purchases came from Russia, but in the last four years this has fallen below 40%.

While arms and aircraft sales (particularly Russian S-400 air defense systems and Sukhoi Su-57 fighter jets) will likely be a key component of Modi and Putin’s talks on Friday, Pande said: “India will try to strike a balance; it will continue to buy enough Russian weapons to preserve the alliance, but not be so dependent that India would be left out in the cold if Russia suddenly cuts supplies under pressure from China.”

Despite all the bear hugs and golf cart rides Modi and Putin have enjoyed together publicly in recent years, “this is a relationship based on pure realpolitik,” he added.

oil issue

Increasing economic cooperation and bilateral trade between the two countries are also expected to be discussed at the summit. At an event attended by leading Russian economists on Tuesday, Putin highlighted Russia’s plan to take cooperation with China and India to a “qualitative new level” despite Western sanctions.

The oil issue is also of great importance. While Modi insists that India will continue to buy Russian oil, new US and EU sanctions threatening companies buying from Russia have led to a noticeable slowdown in purchases by the Indian private sector. Meanwhile, in a move seen as an attempt to appease Trump, India agreed to import more oil and gas from the United States.

In his briefing this week, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov acknowledged that there were “obstacles” in economic and energy cooperation between the two countries, but said they would continue uninterrupted. Peskov said Western sanctions would only cause “insignificant drops and reductions” in the amount of oil Russia exports to India and only for a “very short period of time”, adding that Moscow has the technology to bypass sanctions in the long term.

While Modi and Putin sit at the table, talking about Ukraine will probably be limited to India’s repeated calls for peace, analysts said, emphasizing that the Indian prime minister is unlikely to move the needle in global pressure to stop the war. “Yes, Modi can talk to both Putin and Zelenskyy, but other than asking both countries to talk to each other, India has no power to make a difference on either side,” Pande said.