India is the friend of Europe, the United States… and Russia. The Asian giant, who has always chosen to play on several fronts, hosted Vladimir Putin on Monday, December 6, on the occasion of the 21e annual India-Russia summit, an initiative launched in 2000, under the chairmanship of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The Russian President’s five-hour whirlwind visit to the Indian capital is an important step in consolidating the relationship between the two countries, as Narendra Modi has forged close ties in recent years with former US President Donald Trump and his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, and as the region is subject to considerable geopolitical upheaval.
To underscore the importance of the meeting, the Indians argued that the Russian leader was on his second sortie only since the Covid-19 pandemic. In July, he traveled to Geneva to meet the US president at a bilateral summit, but he did not attend the G20 in Italy, nor the COP26 in Glasgow in November.
The visit did not lead to any major military contracts, apart from an agreement to manufacture 600,000 Russian AK-203 assault rifles in India, Uttar Pradesh, and the renewal of the agreement to military-technical cooperation for a further period of ten years, until 2031. The essentials had already been concluded. India bought the Russian S-400, the long-range air defense system, in 2018 for $ 5.5 billion. Indian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the deliveries were on their way. The S-400s are expected to be deployed near the western border first to deal with threats from Pakistan and China.
“Sovereign decision”
New Delhi maintained this contract, defending “A sovereign decision”, despite threats from Washington which, under the American law Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanction Act, sanctions Russian arms purchases by any country or entity.
“We have seen attempts by the United States to undermine this cooperation and force India to obey American orders and follow the American vision of how this region should be developed. Our Indian friends have clearly and firmly explained that they are a sovereign country and that they will decide what weapons they will buy and who will be a partner of India in this and other areas ”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
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