Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in New Delhi for a two-day trip to attend the 23rd annual India-Russia summit — his first visit to India since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The trip highlights a relationship that has weathered nearly eight decades of global upheaval and remains central to both countries’ strategic calculations.
India and Russia say they aim to deepen their “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership” and to exchange views on regional and global matters, India’s Ministry of External Affairs has said. Kremlin chief of staff Dmitry Peskov has emphasized protecting bilateral trade from outside pressure and indicated discussions on alternative payment mechanisms to blunt the impact of Western sanctions. Those remarks come as India faces US measures tied to its imports of Russian oil, and as Moscow contends with a broad array of Western penalties over the Ukraine war.
The summit agenda covers energy, defence cooperation, labour mobility and technology. Officials have flagged talks on defence contracts — including S-400 air-defence systems, Su-57 fighter jets and small modular nuclear reactors — and on growing numbers of Indians seeking work in Russia. India remains the world’s largest buyer of Russian arms and now gets more than 35% of its crude from Russia, up from roughly 2% before the Ukraine war. At the same time, US actions aimed at entities trading with Russian oil producers have prompted some Indian refiners to diversify suppliers, maritime intelligence firm Kpler reports.
Resilience amid pressure
Analysts and diplomats say India-Russia ties have shown resilience to Western pressure so far. Rajan Kumar of Jawaharlal Nehru University observes that Putin’s visit signals to Western capitals that Moscow is not isolated and that New Delhi prizes the relationship as a means of balancing ties with both the West and China. He argues that shifts in US policy under previous administrations widened a trust gap with Washington, increasing Moscow’s relative importance to New Delhi. Although Russia has deepening ties with Beijing, Moscow is also wary of China’s expanding influence and has courted India through Eurasian platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.
Russia’s readiness to cooperate without pressing conditions on domestic governance is another attraction for New Delhi. Observers say the visit will reinforce a partnership founded on shared interests, long-standing trust and overlapping strategic priorities.
Deep roots
The India-Russia relationship stretches back to the early years after Indian independence. The Soviet Union supported India’s industrialisation and offered diplomatic backing in disputes with Pakistan; in 1971 Moscow sided with New Delhi during the war with Pakistan while the United States and China backed Islamabad. India purchased Soviet military hardware and later produced some systems under licence.
Close defence links endured after the Cold War. In the economically strained 1990s, Russia assisted India in developing missiles and fighter aircraft and supported projects such as India’s nuclear-powered submarine programme. The two countries signed a space cooperation agreement in 2002 and expanded collaboration after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, including deals on nuclear energy and uranium supplies. When the Ukraine war began in 2022, New Delhi sought to avoid alienating either Russia or the West, calling for an end to the fighting without explicitly condemning Moscow.
Strategic autonomy in practice
Analysts characterise India’s stance as one of strategic autonomy: preserving substantial links with both Moscow and Washington to advance national interests. Harsh Pant of the Observer Research Foundation notes that India values its defence and energy ties with Russia enough to resist US pressure, particularly given the unpredictability of American policy. This balancing act allows India to sustain cooperation with Russia while deepening its strategic partnership with the United States.
Putin’s visit will be watched for clues about how New Delhi manages shifting global power dynamics. Former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal says India treats strategic partnerships as non-zero-sum and resists external diktats on its foreign policy. New Delhi is negotiating trade agreements with Washington and is pursuing a roughly $1 billion deal between GE Aerospace and Hindustan Aeronautics for engines for India’s Tejas fighter, signalling expanding US-India defence ties. Yet India remains prepared to host Putin and to maintain a robust relationship with Moscow.
Former ambassador D Bala Venkatesh Varma points to the deep reservoir of trust accumulated between India and Russia over decades, which helps both countries confront geopolitical pressures from larger powers. New Delhi’s likely approach is to reinvest in the bilateral strategic partnership while simultaneously managing other global relationships.
Putin’s visit therefore underlines New Delhi’s effort to preserve strategic autonomy: to pursue useful cooperation with the US and other partners while resisting pressure to abandon a longstanding relationship with Russia.