Russian President Vladimir Putin visited India on December 6. Although the visit was short, he met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed various issues of bilateral interest including the ongoing delivery of the S-400 missile defence systems. Putin’s visit is seen as an effort to repair the damage done to the relationship over the last couple of years, as Russia and India drifted apart. Putin visited India with Russia’s defence and foreign ministers with an aim to reinforce their ties with a military and technical cooperation pact until 2031 and a pledge to boost annual trade to $30 billion by 2025.
Highlights of the Russia India Summit Meet
A number of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) and agreements were signed by the two countries. India and Russia signed 28 agreements in all at the 21st edition of their annual summit.
- A statement from the Indian Prime Minister’s Office stated that the two leaders expressed “satisfaction at the sustained progress” in their bilateral relationship characterized as the “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.” A joint statement published after the talks said Russia and India had “reiterated their intention to strengthen defence cooperation, including in the joint development of production of military equipment.”
- The two sides also stepped up defence cooperation. Ahead of the summit, India has cleared the long-pending AK 203 Kalashnikov rifles deal worth nearly Rs 5,000 crore for production of over five lakh such rifles at Korwa in Amethi by an Indo-Russian joint venture.
- In addition to the deal for India to produce AK-203 assault rifles, Russia said it was interested in continuing to provide S-400 air defence missile systems.
- Russian oil company Rosneft said it signed a contract with Indian Oil to supply up to 2 million tonnes of oil to India by the end of 2022.
- The countries also signed a memorandum of understanding for Russia to send an uninterrupted supply of coal to India to support its steel production, among other deals.
- The two countries also held the inaugural round of a 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue involving the defense and foreign ministers of India and Russia. T
- The Inter-Governmental Commission on Military & Military-Technical Cooperation also held a meeting during the visit.
- Putin and Modi also discussed the situation in Afghanistan, voicing their commitment to ensure that the country will never become a safe haven for international terrorism.
Assessment
Indo-Russian relationship is decade long and time tested. Putin’s recent India visit would have been seen as a normal meet of the heads of two friendly countries in the absence of fast changing geo-politics. The visit is being seen as re-enforcing bilateral ties at the time when the world order is facing several challenges and geo-political matrices are changing. The situation has become more complex as China is aspiring to become a global power. India and Russia enjoy close strategic partnership, especially in the defence sector. Despite India’s conscious efforts for diversification of sources of defence procurement, Russia continues to supply about 70 percent of its defense equipment and spare parts. However, the relation between the two countries is facing the new global order, marked by complexity due to new global alliances and strategic partnership on one hand and efforts by global powers to contain the competitors and rivals.
For Russia growing India-US relations is a matter of concern. and it has remained a major irritant in Delhi-Moscow ties in the past decade. The bonhomie between Mr Modi and Donald Trump during a rally organized for the latter in India in 2020 might have been noted by the Russian authorities with a concern. India’s joining the Quad – an alliance involving the US, Japan and Australia was another development which Russia noted with concern as is clear from the statement of the Russian Foreign Minister Mr Lavrov who said the West was “trying to engage India in anti-China games by promoting Indo-Pacific strategies”. Although Moscow chose to enhance its ties with China in the wake of the Quad, it still values its relations with India given a long history of friendship and cooperation. For India also it is important to keep its all weather friend Russia in its good book, especially when India-China relations have been tense in the recent past – troops from the two countries fought a deadly clash in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley.
Michael Kugelman, deputy director at the Wilson Center think-tank in Washington, says the new geopolitical realities pose a “potential threat to the India-Russia relationship”. India-Russia differences in recent times over developments in the Indo-Pacific and China have become a significant limitation in India-Russia relations. That their annual summit meeting was cancelled in 2020 was a reflection of the difficulties facing their decades-old relationship. The Indian Ministry of External Affairs said that the summit was cancelled on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, but given that other international summits and meetings were being held virtually in 2020, the explanation for the complete cancellation was not entirely convincing.
Although the deal with Moscow puts India at risk of sanctions from the United States under a 2017 U.S. law aimed at deterring countries from buying Russian military hardware, the two countries are not deterred in taking their bilateral ties to a new high. The two countries have worked together on at least three major multilateral groupings — Russia-India-China (RIC), BRICS and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation). They expressed commitment to remain committed to strategic partnership and cooperation. It is notable that the two countries have decided to engage in a new format, the 2+2 ministerial meeting between the Foreign and Defence ministers of both sides, which it has with only the Quad countries — US, Japan and Australia. In the recent Russia-India-China meeting, India had also negotiated hard on including reference to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The two countries would remain important stakeholders together in the new world order. Nevertheless, the geo-political matrix is complex and in a liquid state, but the two countries would have to tread very cautiously.