India-Russia Relations

India and Russia (earlier the Soviet Union) have shared a close relationship since India's independence, built on defence cooperation, energy trade and mutual diplomatic support at the United Nations. This relationship is often described using the phrase "Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership", a label given to it in 2010, showing it is one of India's closest bilateral ties.

Why does it exist?

India and the Soviet Union grew close during the Cold War, when India needed a reliable partner for defence supplies and diplomatic backing, especially at the UNSC, while facing tensions with Pakistan and China. The Soviet Union (and later Russia) also valued India as a large, non-aligned power that gave it influence in South Asia. This mutual benefit has continued even as global politics has changed dramatically since then.

Where did it come from?

The relationship's foundation is the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation, signed in 1971 during the Bangladesh Liberation War, which included a mutual-assistance clause. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, India and Russia signed the Indo-Russian Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 1993 to continue the relationship. In 2000, the two countries signed a "Declaration on Strategic Partnership", and in 2010, this was upgraded to a "Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership", the highest tier of partnership language India uses with any country.

How does it work?

The relationship runs on annual summit-level meetings between the two countries' leaders, along with several structured mechanisms:

• Defence cooperation, including joint military exercises and a long history of Russia supplying and helping India manufacture defence equipment, such as fighter aircraft, tanks and missile systems.
• Energy cooperation, including nuclear power (Russia helped build India's Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant) and, in recent years, large-scale crude oil imports.
• Diplomatic coordination, especially Russia's consistent support for India at the UNSC, including backing India's bid for permanent membership going back decades.
• Multilateral cooperation through groupings both countries belong to, such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, later expanded) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The key parts and facts

Russia remains one of the largest suppliers of defence equipment to India, though India has diversified its defence imports towards other countries such as the United States, France and Israel in recent years. Russia has historically used its UNSC veto in ways that supported India's core interests, including opposing resolutions India viewed as unfavourable on Kashmir at various points since the Cold War era.

India's position and Indian examples

India has taken a position of "strategic autonomy" in its foreign policy, meaning it engages closely with Russia while also deepening ties with the United States and other Western countries (for example, through the Quad grouping with the US, Japan and Australia). India has not condemned Russia at the UN over the Russia-Ukraine conflict that began in 2022, instead calling for dialogue and diplomacy, a position it has maintained consistently, reflecting the importance it places on the Russia relationship alongside its other partnerships.

Commonly confused concepts

• Strategic partnership vs alliance: A strategic partnership like India-Russia's involves close, wide-ranging cooperation, but does not include a formal, binding mutual-defence obligation like a military alliance (for example, NATO) has among its members.
• Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership vs Comprehensive Strategic Partnership: India uses different tiers of language for different countries; "Special and Privileged" is reserved for Russia alone, showing the depth India assigns to this relationship compared to other "Strategic Partnerships" or "Comprehensive Strategic Partnerships" it holds with other nations.

Issues, criticism and the way forward

The India-Russia relationship faces new pressures because Russia has grown closer to China since 2022, a country with which India has an unresolved border dispute, raising questions in Indian strategic circles about whether Russia can still be relied upon to balance China. At the same time, India's growing ties with the US and other Western powers have created some friction, especially around India's continued purchase of Russian oil and defence equipment despite Western sanctions on Russia.

Indian foreign policy experts generally argue that India should continue to keep its relationship with Russia while widening ties elsewhere, using its position of "strategic autonomy" to avoid being pulled fully into any one camp.

Concepts to Know

• Strategic autonomy: A foreign policy approach where a country avoids binding alliances and instead makes independent decisions on each issue, based on its own interests, while engaging with multiple powers at once.
• Quad: An informal grouping of India, the United States, Japan and Australia that discusses security and economic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.
• BRICS: A grouping of major emerging economies, originally Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, later expanded to include more countries.