New Delhi, India – Under a thick blanket of smog in the world’s most polluted city, the leaders of Russia and India put on a display of diplomatic resilience, projecting a message that their bilateral partnership remains insulated from widening global fractures.
At the Russia-India annual bilateral summit in New Delhi – against a backdrop of intensifying Western pressure, punctuated by recent United States tariff threats and the ongoing negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine – the two leaders framed their relationship as a stabilising force.
While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the two countries’ relations as “steadfast like a pole star”, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin showered praise on his Indian counterpart for resisting “external pressure” and investing in the shared bond.
In a rare break from protocol, Modi was present at the airport in Delhi to receive Putin on Thursday night, and shared the car ride back to the Indian PM’s residence for dinner, in what has come to be known as “limo diplomacy” as Putin often uses his Aurus limousine to hold talks.
On Friday, memorandums of understanding were exchanged between multiple ministers from each side, expanding trade and cooperation in various sectors, from energy to agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
The deals, Modi said, would take “India-Russia economic partnership to new heights” under the India-Russia economic cooperation programme until 2030. The countries have agreed on an ambitious trade target of $100bn.
And, in a major signal to the West, Putin said: “Russia is ready for uninterrupted shipments of fuel to India.” Importing Russian crude has put India in a geopolitical bind and soured relations with the US, which believes it is financing the war in Ukraine. Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump hit India with an additional trade tariff of 25 percent – bringing the total to 50 percent on Indian goods exported to the US – because of its continuing purchase of Russian oil.
So, what were the main takeaways from this summit?
India and Russia affirmed their deep ties
The summit provided a platform for the two countries to reach a slew of trade agreements spanning jobs, health, shipping and chemicals.
However, analysts said the summit was more important as a show of political messaging.
“The biggest takeaway from the summit is the signalling that neither side has any intention to dilute this relationship, and is ready to withstand any external pressure,” said Harsh Pant, a geopolitics analyst at New Delhi-based think tank, the Observer Research Foundation.
Moreover, Pant said: “The attempt is to build the economic partnership, beyond oil and defence.” And without that, he added, “the bilateral relationship is not responsive to today’s realities”.
Robinder Sachdev, president of the Imagindia Institute, a Delhi-based think tank, said that the summit holds “extreme importance for the greater willingness on the part of both Russia and India to turbocharge this relationship”.
“Both sides want to increase their engagement beyond just government-to-government deals, in oil and defence sectors, and boost people-to-people ties,” said Sachdev. “That can be the biggest string in this bilateral relationship.”
Neither leader took questions after their media statements, which Putin concluded by saying that the Russian delegation was pleased with agreements that will “deepen” the bilateral partnership.
Putin added that, along with other BRICS countries – a growing bloc of emerging economies – India and Russia are promoting a “more just” and “multipolar” world. Putin also underlined the close bond that he shared with Modi by referring to their “close working dialogue” and “regular” phone calls.
In his statement, Modi said the two countries’ “Economic Cooperation Programme” is designed to diversify, balance, and make trade and investment sustainable, and further expand export, co-production, and co-innovation opportunities.
“Both sides are working towards the early conclusion of a Free Trade Agreement with the Eurasian Economic Union,” Modi added.
Modi also said that increasing the “connectivity” between Moscow and New Delhi is a “major priority for us”, noting that energy security has been a “strong and important pillar” of bilateral relations.
Modi also mentioned the opening of two new Indian consulates in Russia last month, and introduced two new 30-day visa schemes that would be made available for Russian tourists in India soon.
Modi said he had discussed the war in Ukraine with Putin and conveyed that India has “stood for peace since the beginning”.
“India and Russia have long supported each other, and worked shoulder to shoulder in the fight against terrorism,” said Modi, mentioning the April attack in Kashmir and the attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow in 2024.
India did not pressure Russia over Ukraine
Russia and India have held an annual bilateral summit since 2000, for which the Indian prime minister visits Russia one year, and the Russian president returns the visit the following year. It was paused following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and only resumed in 2024 when Modi visited Russia.
Ultimately, the Russian president’s 30-hour flying visit to Delhi sends a clear message to other world leaders amid growing pressure on him to conclude a peace deal with Ukraine. Putin is saying: “Moscow is not alone, and the efforts to isolate the Kremlin have failed”, experts say.
Ukraine’s allies in Europe and the US had hoped New Delhi would persuade Putin to agree to a peace deal. However, India did not call on Russia to end the war, although PM Modi appeared to reiterate his earlier position that “this is not an era of war”.
“India is on the side of peace,” the Indian prime minister said during discussions between the two leaders at Hyderabad House in Delhi on Friday.
“The world should return to peace, and we support every effort towards peace,” said Modi, adding, “India-Russia relations should grow and touch new heights.”
Expressing his gratitude to Modi, Putin said, “The two nations also have relations in the military sphere, in space development, artificial intelligence, and other areas … and we intend to move forward in all these areas.”
India is walking a tightrope between Russia and the West
New Delhi is currently caught in a precarious geopolitical equation, a reality that has starkly tested the scope of India’s foreign policy.
On one side, India faces an increasingly coercive United States and its punitive trade tariffs. The Trump administration accuses India of effectively financing Putin’s war machine in Ukraine by buying crude oil.
The war in Ukraine, however, has tested the friendship between Moscow and New Delhi – a relationship that goes back decades.
Since its independence from Britain in 1947, India has avoided becoming locked into formal alliances with any superpower, leading the non-aligned movement during the Cold War. In reality, however, it drifted closer to the then-Soviet Union from the 1960s.
Since the end of the Cold War, India has deepened strategic and military ties with the US while trying to keep its friendship with Russia afloat.
India remains the top buyer of Russian arsenal. And India’s dependence on the Russian military sector was recently made apparent during New Delhi’s four-day clashes with Pakistan, with real-time reliance on Russian platforms such as the S-400 missile system and Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighters.
Investing in ties with Moscow and hosting Putin at this time allows New Delhi some leverage in a fragmented global order and maintains what it calls “strategic autonomy” to pursue its “multi-alignment” foreign policy.
The Delhi summit allowed the leaders to double down on that “neither side wants to bring this relationship down, and both sides want to invest diplomatic capital,” said Pant, of the ORF.
“The more Trump and his administration target India, the more it makes the case in India as to why the relationship with Russia is important,” he added.
Putin was defiant over US pressure on oil
The Russian president said that despite Western sanctions against Moscow and the imposition of the White House’s punishing tariffs on India for importing Russian oil, the bilateral energy cooperation largely “remains unaffected”.
Putin told broadcaster India Today that Washington continues to buy Russian nuclear fuel for power plants.
“That is also fuel; uranium for the reactors operating in the US. If the US has the right to buy our fuel, why shouldn’t India have the same privilege?” said the Russian president. “This question deserves thorough examination, and we stand ready to discuss it, including with President (Donald) Trump.”
India-Russia trade has undergone a major shift since 2022, ballooning from a modest $10bn to a record nearly $69bn this year, primarily fuelled by New Delhi’s appetite for discounted Russian crude oil.
However, these numbers remain lopsided: Indian exports, largely pharmaceuticals and machinery, stand at roughly $5bn, resulting in a widening $64bn trade deficit.
Furthermore, the latest official data from India’s commerce ministry reveals that India reduced its crude imports from Russia by 38 percent in value compared with last year, down from a record high $5.8bn last year to $3.55bn this October.
Despite all this, Russia still accounts for just above 30 percent of India’s total oil imports by value and volume.
While noting that the import numbers have come down, Putin stressed that trade remains “unaffected by current conditions, fleeting political swings or the tragic events in Ukraine” and added that Russian businesses had built a solid and efficient commercial relationship with India, one based on mutual trust.
What else was discussed on the sidelines of the summit?
Putin landed in New Delhi with an entourage which included Andrei Belousov, his defence minister, and a large delegation from business and industry, including top executives of Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport.
Belousov met his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, at New Delhi’s Manekshaw Centre on Thursday, before the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit.
While Singh looked to further the Indian government’s aim to build capacity in its indigenous defence industry, the Russian defence minister emphasised “the Russian defence industry’s [readiness] to support India towards becoming self-reliant in the field of defence production”, a joint statement read.
A Russian delegation also expressed interest in importing fishery and meat products from India and resolving market access issues, the Indian government said in a separate statement following a meeting between agriculture ministers on the sidelines.
India exported fishery products worth $7.45bn last year; however, a smaller share of $127m headed to Russia.
Geopolitical analysts noted that the summit leaves New Delhi hoping for a quicker peace deal on Ukraine, in order to free its strategic partner from global pressure.
And when that happens, “peace in the region would provide a window of opportunity for India to move fast and expand exports and business deals with Russia”, said Sachdev. “And beat Western nations to the race, who would also eventually return to Russia.”
