New Delhi, India – Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting India on Thursday for the first time since Moscow’s war on Ukraine began four years ago, even as the United States stalls renewed pressure to end the conflict.
Putin’s speedy 30-hour trip also coincides with a tense turn in relations between Washington and New Delhi, with the US threatening India with tariffs and sanctions over strong historical ties with Russia and an increase in purchases of Russian crude during the Ukraine war.
Because of that tension, India’s long-term balancing act with Russia and the West has become an even more delicate tightrope walk.
Since independence from Britain in 1947, India has tried to avoid a formal alliance with any superpower, leading the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, although it has actually moved closer to the Soviet Union since the 1960s. Since the end of the Cold War, it has strengthened strategic and military ties with the US while trying to maintain its friendship with Russia.
Still, Russia’s war on Ukraine has challenged that balance — and Putin’s visit could show India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi how to handle New Delhi’s competitive relationship without sacrificing either of them.
What is planned for Putin?
Putin is expected to land on Thursday evening and join Modi for a private dinner at the prime minister’s residence in the heart of India’s capital, New Delhi.
On the morning of Friday, December 5, Putin will visit the Rashtrapati Bhavan to meet the Guard of Honor and India’s ceremonial head of state, Draupadi Murmu. They will then proceed to Rajghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, as will all visiting leaders.
Later, Putin and Modi will meet at Hyderabad House, which hosts the highest-level leadership summit for the latest chapter of the annual India-Russia Summit. Afterward, he will meet business leaders before attending a banquet thrown by Indian President Murmu in Putin’s honor.
Earlier, the Kremlin said in a statement that Putin’s visit to India was “of great importance, providing an opportunity to comprehensively discuss the broad agenda of Russian-Indian relations as a particularly privileged strategic partnership”.
Putin will be joined by his defense minister, Andrei Belosov, and a wide delegation from business and industry, including top officials from Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport and heads of concession oil companies Rosneft and Gazprom Neft.
Why is appointment time important?
The visit marked 25 years of strategic partnership between India and Russia, marking Putin’s first year as the country’s head of state.
But while India and Russia like to portray their relationship as an example of a friendship that has remained steadfast amid changing geopolitical currents, their relationship has not been immune to pressure from other nations.
Since 2000, annual summits have been arranged in New Delhi and Moscow: the Indian Prime Minister visits Russia one year and the Russian President returns to India the following year.
However, that tradition was broken in 2022, the year Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Modi was supposed to go to Russia for this summit, but the summit was postponed.
In 2023, Putin skipped a visit to India for the G20 summit in New Delhi. At the time, Putin rarely traveled abroad, largely because of an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against him related to the Ukraine war. India is not a member of the ICC – and so it would have been safe for Putin to attend, but Western members of the G20 made it clear that their leaders would be uncomfortable sharing a room with the Russian president.
Finally, in 2024, the annual summit resumed, with Modi visiting Russia. And now Putin is going to land in New Delhi after four years.
What’s on the agenda?
Trade analysts and political experts expect Putin to seek more areas for India to buy more Russian missile systems and fighter jets, boost defense ties and expand trade, including pharmaceuticals, machinery and agricultural products.
The summit provides an opportunity for both sides to reaffirm their special relationship amid intense pressure from (US) President (Donald) Trump with punitive tariffs, Praveen Donthi, senior India analyst at Crisis Group, a US think tank, told Al Jazeera.
Putin, analysts said, will seek an optical dividend from the summit.
“President Putin can also send a strong message to his own people and the international community that Russia is not alone in the world,” said Rajan Kumar, a professor of international studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
Kumar told Al Jazeera that “Russia is being welcomed by the democracies while Putin is under pressure for war in Ukraine.”
But visuals aside, the main driver of India-Russia relations – the oil trade – is now under threat. And that, along with the shadow of the man responsible for the disruption, will be hovering over the debate, experts said.
Is Trump an overshadowing factor at the summit?
After Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, India became the second largest buyer of Russian crude – with imports increasing by 2,250 percent, as Russia’s share of imports rose from 1 percent to 40 percent.
At the time, the US quietly encouraged India to buy more Russian oil, New Delhi says. The West was halting purchases of Russian crude, and a global embargo on that oil would have reduced global supply and pushed up prices. India helped stabilize the world market by increasing its consumption of Russian oil.
But as Trump looks for levers to use to pressure Moscow and Kiev to end the war in his second term, he has targeted India for purchases of Russian oil. After initially imposing a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods, Trump doubled it to 50 percent as a penalty for buying Russian crude.
For months thereafter, India continued to import Russian oil, defending what it called its “strategic autonomy”.
However, in October, Trump imposed sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies – Rosneft and Lukoil – and threatened to impose sanctions on companies from other countries that do business with them.
Reliance, India’s largest private oil refiner – and the largest buyer of Russian oil in India – has said it will no longer export petroleum products that use Russian crude.
Indian imports of Russian crude are now expected to fall to a three-year low. Meanwhile, India recently signed a deal to dramatically increase gas imports from the US.
In the defense sector too, the US is pushing for more purchases from India and less from Russia.
“New Delhi is wary of upsetting Washington over defense deals with Moscow, but it will not be deterred from making important deals,” said Donthi, an analyst at the Crisis Group. “India hopes to deflect US criticism by striking similar deals with it, some of which are already under way.”
But Trump’s push threatens to hurt America’s goodwill in India.
Kanwal Sibal, India’s former foreign secretary and former ambassador to Russia, said Trump and the US were using a “double standard”.
“Trump can roll out the red carpet for Putin in Alaska. So why shouldn’t India expand its ties with Russia?” He added, referring to the Trump-Putin summit in August.
India-Russia relations are strong in which areas?
Although India and Russia’s bilateral energy ties face many obstacles, their defense ties are more stable.
Russia is India’s largest defense supplier, accounting for approximately 36 percent of arms imports and more than 60 percent of India’s existing arsenal.
The import figure has come down from 72 percent in 2010 as India tries to boost domestic production and buy more from the US and European nations. But experts say Russia’s position as India’s pre-eminent defense partner is likely to remain unchallenged for years to come.
The Russian S-400 missile defense system was central to India’s air defense during the four-day air war with Pakistan in May. Indian Air Chief Marshal AP Singh said, “S-400 is a game changer for India”.
New Delhi is now considering buying additional S-400 air defense systems. Meanwhile, Russia wants to sell its Su-57 fifth-generation stealth fighter jets to India. “The SU-57 is the best aircraft in the world,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, said before the summit. “And that will be on the agenda.”
What are India-Russia trade prospects?
India-Russia trade has seen a major shift since 2022, rising from a modest $10bn to a record $69bn this year, largely due to New Delhi’s growing appetite for discounted Russian crude.
However, the numbers remain one-sided: Indian exports, mainly pharmaceuticals and machinery, amount to about $5 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $64 billion. And Russia’s exports to India have been dominated by oil over the past three years. Now trade is expected to fall, so the overall figure will increase, experts caution. The India-Russia goal of trade reaching $100bn by 2030 seems far-fetched.
Instead, analysts told Al Jazeera, both countries are now betting on labor migration as a driver of people-to-people and economic ties.
According to estimates by the Russian Ministry of Labor, by 2030, the country is expected to have a shortage of 3.1 million workers. Indian workers can fill that gap.
“Russia is opening its labor market to India and is looking to shift labor suppliers to India from Central Asian countries,” said Kumar, a professor of international studies. “This type of migration can have a positive impact on India-Russia relations.”
This will not change the fundamental tension undermining India’s relationship with Russia: New Delhi’s eagerness not to damage relations with the US in the process.
With India simultaneously negotiating trade deals with the US, the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union, an economic bloc led by Russia at the moment, New Delhi is walking a fine line “where there is a risk of antagonizing one of the two, who are all important economic trading partners,” Kumar said.
One thing that could help: a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, analysts say.