New Agenda of Russia-India Relations
Alexey Kupriyanov
Russian Council (RIAC)
The last time Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin was almost five years ago, in September 2019. The following year, the pandemic broke out, and the Russian leader did not pay a return visit until December 2021. A few months later, the Ukraine crisis began, and since then the annual bilateral summits have been unofficially put on pause. Now, finally, Modi is coming to Russia again—and this meeting is likely to be quite different from all previous ones, because over the past two years, India–Russia relations have undergone a transformation that would have been hard to imagine even five years ago.
Still a Polycentric World — In the previous decade and a half, Russian and Indian political and expert circles have shaped consistent narratives describing the present and future of bilateral relations. While Russian experts nostalgically recalled the good times of Soviet–Indian friendship and deplored the stagnation of trade, Indian experts looked at the situation more pragmatically. Russia in their worldview was an important balancer, helping to escape an excessive bias of Indian policy toward the most promising non-regional partner—the United States. In addition, a further weakening of Moscow, which could push it toward an alliance with Beijing, was seen as a major risk. In the latter case, resource-rich Russia might turn into a multiplier of Chinese power, which was in direct conflict with India’s foreign policy interests. As a result, developing political dialogue with Russia and forming a new polycentric world in which Moscow, as one of the world centers, would be a reliable partner for New Delhi, fully met India’s strategic goals.
