NEW DELHI: When Vladimir Putin stepped onto the tarmac in New Delhi and was greeted with a warm embrace and a 21‑gun salute, the choreography left little doubt: India is not about to let Western pressure dictate the terms of its long, complex partnership with Moscow. The visit, Putin’s first to India since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, culminated in a pledge with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deepen and diversify economic ties well beyond their traditional anchors of oil and defense. It was a clear signal that, even as New Delhi courts Washington, it has no intention of downgrading Moscow.
At one level, this is hard‑headed realism. India is the world’s top buyer of Russian arms and seaborne oil, and that energy lifeline has helped cushion domestic inflation and fuel its growth story. For Moscow, squeezed by sanctions and increasingly dependent on Asian markets, India is too important a customer and too important a political partner to lose. Hence the new goal: expanding bilateral trade to 100 billion dollars by 2030, and rebalancing flows that are currently heavily skewed by India’s energy imports. The two sides’ new economic cooperation programme, running to 2030, is designed precisely to move beyond a narrow oil‑and‑weapons relationship toward more diversified, “sustainable” trade and investment.
The symbolism was thick. Modi hailed Russia as a “guiding star” in India’s foreign policy, insisting that ties built on “mutual respect and deep trust” have “stood the test of time.” Putin, standing beside him, promised uninterrupted fuel supplies in defiance of U.S. sanctions and highlighted Russia’s role in building India’s largest nuclear power plant at Kudankulam. Together, they unveiled deals to facilitate Indian workers’ mobility to Russia, establish a joint‑venture fertiliser plant, and boost cooperation in agriculture, healthcare and shipping. On defence, they signalled a shift toward joint research, development and production in India exactly in line with New Delhi’s “self‑reliance” agenda, but still firmly anchored in Russian technology and platforms.
Yet the timing of this diplomatic red‑carpet treatment is awkward and not just for Washington and Brussels. New Delhi is simultaneously negotiating with the United States to roll back punitive tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump over India’s Russian oil purchases, even as it insists those tariffs are unjustified given that the U.S. and the EU continue to import billions of dollars’ worth of Russian energy and commodities themselves. Putin, in a pointed interview, challenged the hypocrisy head‑on, asking why the U.S. could buy Russian nuclear fuel while India was being pressured not to. His message was unmistakable: if Washington claims strategic flexibility for itself, New Delhi should assert the same.
For India, this is not simply about cheap crude or legacy defence deals; it is about strategic autonomy. Successive Indian governments have insisted that the country will not be dragged into binary “with us or against us” alignments. But the room for that balancing act is narrowing. Since Europe began cutting its reliance on Russian energy after the Ukraine war, India stepped in as a major buyer of discounted Russian oil—only to scale back under the weight of U.S. tariffs and sanctions this year. As analyst Michael Kugelman notes, India now faces a genuine conundrum: every move to reassure Moscow risks unsettling Washington, and every concession to U.S. pressure risks eroding trust in Moscow.
Modi’s careful rhetoric on Ukraine reflects this tightrope. He reiterated support for a peaceful resolution but stopped short of the kind of explicit condemnation Western capitals sought in 2022 and 2023. For Moscow, the optics of a lavish welcome in the world’s largest democracy help blunt the narrative of isolation. For New Delhi, maintaining visible warmth toward Putin underscores that India will not be seen as a junior partner in a U.S.‑led camp. But there are costs. India’s aspiration to be a central pillar of Western “friend‑shoring” and supply‑chain diversification sits uneasily alongside its refusal to distance itself from Russia’s war.
The open question is whether India can keep extracting transactional benefits from both sides without being forced to choose. The 100‑billion‑dollar trade vision with Russia, the push for joint defence production, and the deepening energy partnership all tie India more tightly into Moscow’s economic ecosystem at a time when Western sanctions architecture is becoming more sophisticated and extraterritorial. If Washington hardens its stance, New Delhi may find its much‑prized strategic autonomy under new strain.
For now, though, the message from Rashtrapati Bhavan’s forecourt is clear: India and Russia are betting that their decades‑old friendship can be updated, not abandoned, in the age of great‑power confrontation. It is a bold wager one that could preserve India’s freedom of maneuver or leave it caught in the crossfire of a deepening geopolitical contest it cannot fully control.
–Dr. Shahid Siddiqui | Follow on X @shahidsiddiqui
