Putin’s India Go to: A day earlier than President Vladimir Putin lands in New Delhi, Russia has achieved one thing that has caught each strategist’s eye. By publicly outlining how far it’s prepared to strengthen ties, Moscow has successfully positioned the subsequent transfer with India, saying that it is able to take the connection to a a lot increased stage if India desires it.
The message got here from Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov throughout a web based press briefing organised by the Russian company Sputnik on Tuesday (December 2). In his normal measured tone, he stated Moscow’s partnership with China has grown nicely past conventional limits, and Moscow sees India in an analogous manner. He stated the depth of this relationship will in the end depend upon how far India desires to take it.
“China is our particular strategic associate. Now we have very high-level cooperation with China, as we do with India. We’re able to develop cooperation past limits with China. Our strategy with India is similar. So far as India is able to go, we’re ready to go that far. If India expands cooperation, we’re totally prepared for it,” Peskov stated.
He additionally admitted that India is beneath strain due to its ties with Russia, stressing the necessity for each nations to guard their commerce and maintain the connection insulated from outdoors interference.
“We perceive that India is beneath strain. That’s the reason we have to be very cautious whereas advancing our ties. Our relationships should stay free from the affect of any third nation. We should safeguard our ties and the commerce that advantages either side,” he stated.
Putin’s Message Earlier than The Go to
Earlier on Tuesday, President Putin had additionally spoken about his need to boost ties with each India and China to a “new top”.
For a lot of watchers, the coordination of those statements was telling. Geopolitical strategist Velina Tchakarova believes Russia’s newest message to India is a part of a cautious balancing act. In response to her, Moscow is making an attempt to offset its rising dependence on Beijing by holding out a bigger strategic partnership to New Delhi.
“Russia has simply signalled a ‘no-limits’ strategic partnership to India. ‘Now we have no limits to our cooperation with China. However we have now the identical stand with India. Russia is able to go so far as India is prepared,’” she wrote on X, quoting Peskov.
She stated, “This can be a outstanding transfer: Moscow is overtly making an attempt to stability its dependence on China by elevating India to equal strategic standing. It displays Russia’s seek for room to manoeuvre beneath sanctions, India’s centrality within the rising new Chilly Struggle and the DragonBear’s try to maintain New Delhi strategically shut whilst US-India ties deepen.”
“If India accepts even a part of this supply,” she posted, “the geopolitical geometry of Asia corresponding to Ukraine warfare diplomacy, BRICS+, power flows and the Indo-Pacific stability will shift once more”.
To place it plainly, Moscow desires India to enter a China-like depth of partnership, however provided that India can face up to strain from the West. And Moscow additionally desires reassurance that New Delhi won’t restrict commerce due to American tariffs. For India, neither demand is simple.
What Does India Need?
On the Jindal Faculty of Worldwide Affairs, Dean and creator Sreeram Chaulia believes Russia might want India to make the subsequent transfer, however Moscow shouldn’t anticipate a dramatic change.
“Russia and China have a partnership and that’s clearly anti-American. India doesn’t wish to be a part of that camp. China and Russia see the US as a rival, however India doesn’t. India wants the US for its improvement. It can not abandon Washington for Moscow, nor can it drop Russia for the US,” he instructed BBC.
Chaulia defined that Beijing and Moscow have moved right into a “no-limits” relationship as a result of they want one another. India, then again, wants all three (Russia, China and the US) for various causes.
“India’s relationship with Russia is principally about power and defence. With the US, the connection is multi-dimensional. In 2024, India-US bilateral commerce was recorded at $129 billion, with a surplus of $45 billion in India’s favour. Why would India be part of an anti-American bloc? India wants US know-how,” he stated.
Peskov had acknowledged that India-Russia commerce presently stands at $63 billion, and Moscow hopes this can contact $100 billion by 2030. Earlier than the Ukraine warfare started in 2021, it was simply $13 billion. The surge has come virtually fully from discounted Russian oil.
The Commerce Imbalance
Regardless of the numbers, the commerce is closely one-sided. In 2024-25, India exported solely $4.88 billion value of products to Russia, whereas imports touched $63.84 billion.
Bloomberg reported that till October 15, Indian refiners have been getting Russian crude at a reduction of $2-2.5 per barrel in comparison with international benchmarks. However in 2023, this low cost was over $23. With the margin narrowing, the financial savings for India have dropped considerably.
In response to scores company Funding Data and Credit score Ranking Company of India (ICRA), India saved solely about $3.8 billion on Russian crude within the final monetary 12 months, down from the huge features of the early-war interval.
In the meantime, the US stays India’s largest export vacation spot, with Indian exports standing at $87 billion final 12 months.
Russia desires India to attain three issues: determine whether or not it desires a “past limits” partnership with Moscow, guarantee no third nation influences India-Russia ties and lift bilateral commerce to $100 billion by 2030.
However none of those are easy decisions for New Delhi. In reality, forward of Putin’s arrival, India’s oil imports from Russia have already fallen.
Ajay Srivastava, head of the Delhi-based assume tank GTRI, says purchases have been dropping over the previous months. “Indian corporations have already decreased crude imports from Russia. Official knowledge exhibits Russia’s whole exports to India fell 27.7% year-on-year in October 2025 from $6.7 billion final 12 months to $4.8 billion. Since most of that is crude oil, the autumn exhibits a drop of greater than 30% in Russian oil shopping for,” he stated.
India can be cautious of being seen as a part of an overtly anti-American bloc, one thing many analysts consider the China-Russia partnership represents.
How Does Putin’s Go to Look To The West?
Because the World Struggle II, India has stayed out of fastened energy blocs, first by means of non-alignment and now by means of what it calls strategic autonomy. Exterior Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has repeatedly stated India won’t compromise this precept.
Even so, strategic affairs professional Brahma Chellaney believes Putin’s journey is a message within the present international local weather.
“In a world splitting into rival blocs, Putin’s Dec. 4-5 go to to New Delhi is not only one other diplomatic stopover; it’s a highly effective geopolitical assertion. The journey is poised to ship consequential agreements, together with new fee channels designed to bypass the SWIFT system and dilute the dominance of the U.S. greenback,” he wrote on X.
He stated India has watched with rising alarm as Western coverage, by means of unprecedented sanctions and the weaponisation of SWIFT and different monetary instruments, has pushed Moscow into Beijing’s strategic embrace. However Putin’s go to, his first to India because the Ukraine warfare started, highlights that Russia nonetheless has choices past China and won’t permit itself to be decreased to a “junior associate” to Beijing.
“India, in the meantime, is sending a blunt message of its personal. At a second when the U.S. beneath Trump is treating it shabbily (for instance, U.S. tariffs on India at the moment are increased than on China), New Delhi will neither ostracise Russia nor fall consistent with Western sanctions that injury its strategic autonomy. By internet hosting Putin, India is making clear that it rejects the Western-imposed binary of ‘with us or in opposition to us’ and can chart its personal path,” he wrote.
China’s Position In The Triangle
Simply earlier than the warfare in opposition to Ukraine, Russia and China issued a joint assertion describing their partnership as “no limits”. Analysts have debated whether or not that phrase nonetheless holds the identical which means at this time.
Yun Solar, director for the China Programme on the Stimson Middle in Washington, instructed the Wall Avenue Journal that China’s assist for Russia can’t be pinned solely to the Ukraine invasion.
“Xi Jinping strengthening ties with Russia can’t be linked fully to the Ukraine warfare. This type of heat might have emerged at any time,” she stated.
China’s international ministry had put it in writing as nicely: Beijing and Moscow are strategic companions and their ties are non-aligned, non-confrontational and never directed at any third nation.