Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put rumours of a potential fallout between time-tested friends, Russia and India, to rest, by inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to India and the latter accepting. On 28 March, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that preparations for the visit are underway. With the visit, Putin's first to India since the start of the war with Ukraine, Russia seems to be clearing the air after a buzz in diplomatic circles fuelled by reports of a curdle in Indo-Russian ties due to erratic Trumpism.
The visit, which had been on the cards for some time, had receded to the backstage due to the enormous pressure being put on Delhi by the belligerent Donald Trump administration. The latter has been threatening to impose tariffs on India if it does not stop buying crude oil from Moscow.
India-Russia under Trump 2.0: Of Rifts and Rumours
Putin is expected to visit New Delhi later this year and sort out some of these challenges the bilateral ties are currently facing.
This includes the looming threat to a joint venture refinery, Nayara, in Gujarat, in which a Russian company, Rosneft, is purportedly being pressured to sell its stake. Besides the uncertain future of Nayara, the existence of the BRICS alliance is also being threatened.
Hence, Putin’s trip will decide many things—including whether the troika of Russia, China and India will survive Trump’s tariff threats or not, and whether the RIC (RUSSIA, China and India) countries will get a new lease of life.
By the time the Russian strongman visits India later this year, it would have become clear how the global chessboard has been set by Trump and his maniacal executive orders.
Russia considers India very precious in the existing scheme of things. Its bilateral trade has soared to stratospheric heights after Russia got mired in a fratricidal war with Ukraine.
As Moscow was prohibited by a slew of US sanctions to sell its crude elsewhere, it sold a bulk of it to its BRICS allies, China and India. Since 2022, the crude component has grown in the trade basket, which was previously confined to just buying the bulk of its weapons from the legatee of the Soviet Union, the Russian Republic.
With Trump now armed with his threat to impose tariffs on those buying Russian oil, India could be compelled to forsake importing crude from Russia and buy US crude instead.
That would be a body blow. What is worse is that there are reports floating around that the Russian company, Rosneft, may be compelled to sell its 49.3 percent stake from a joint venture company, Nayara, which is located in Gujarat. Rosneft had bought this stake from the Essar group. This is the second largest refinery after Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery.
Although reports suggests that Rosneft is keen to sell its stake for $20 billion as it is not able to repatriate its profits back home, Russian sources claim there is no merit in this claim. According to them, the report about Rosneft leaving India is coming from some quarters other than Rosneft. Are Indian industrialists salivating at the prospect of buying this stake? Not much is known about this, but a Russian source who spoke with The Quint claimed that the rumours of Nayara cashing out from India have a foreign origin.
Russia-US: A War of Nerves
Moscow may want to give the benefit of doubt to the present Trump administration and hold the former President, Joe Biden, accountable for heaping misery on them through sanctions on oil. There are hints aplenty that display palpable anxiety over how this war of nerves between US and Russia will play out. Russians believe that once the Ukraine war ends, it may be easier for the two countries to do business with each other, but they find it difficult to explain how they will reconcile with BRICS, which is an anti-US construct.
President Trump has been trenchant in his response about the attempts of Russia and China to seed a reserve currency in place of dollar.
Though India is opposed to the idea of replacing dollar as a global currency, it was reminded of President Trump’s extreme aversion when Modi made a short visit to Washington earlier in February this year.
The Russians are also not very adamant, these days, about the reserve currency business and claim that India is right about practising its strategic autonomy, which gives them the freedom to do what they want. The source told The Quint, “They can join Quad, Squad, SCO or anything. What we are suggesting is that member countries should trade in national currency”.
But what happens if, say, Russia collects plenty of Rupees and finds no users for it, as had happened recently? As per sources, this particular issue has been sorted out among BRICS members but problems remain with regard to instituting a financial architecture different from what has been built around SWIFT and global trade.
India-China-Moscow: A Balancing Act
Russians claim to have managed to work as a key balancer between India and China, and Moscow has worked hard to ensure that the existing tensions between the two countries does not spin out of control.
Russia is of the belief that India and China began to talk with each other after Chinese President Xi Jinping and Modi met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation (SCO) summit at Kazan, Russia.
Putin’s persuasion has been critical in ensuring that the two Asian powers do not get provoked into fighting with each other by the West.
Russians do not believe that India or China could be persuaded by Washington to dump BRICS or jettison each other. The Russian source claims that both India and China admire Russian military equipment. They are of the firm belief that India may diversify its arms purchase to other countries, but Russia remains central to its defence preparedness. It buys 35 percent of the military equipment from Moscow. According to SIPRI, France is a close second and sells 33 percent of equipment to India.
Russia is trying to sell its fifth-generation aircraft Su 57—unveiled at the Aero India 2025 air show in Bangalore last month—to India. Though the US is selling its fifth generation F35 to India too, Russia claims its flying machines are vastly superior.
Moscow is also offering to transfer technology and production license to India, as given to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to produce Su30 MK1. Hundreds of Sukhois have been manufactured since then. The Russian offer is, indeed, superior.
Unlike the US, their equipment does not have a kill switch to stop an aircraft or a weapon system from operating when the government of the country manufacturing the equipment thinks that purchase of said equipment is in violation of the purchase agreement.
“If India is at war with a country and using US military equipment, then it should not be manipulated by the US by threatening the use of the kill switch,” the source stated. However, the bigger question is whether the US, under Trump, can be mollified at all.
(Sanjay Kapoor is a veteran journalist and founder of Hardnews Magazine. He is a foreign policy specialist focused on India and its neighbours, and West Asia. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)