Arms trade, economic ties and congruent geo-political interests are no longer the three pillars of India – Russia relationship in the emerging strategic context. Comment. (2023, 20 Marks)
For half a century the bond rested on a triad: Soviet and then Russian weapons, a state-managed exchange, and a shared reading of threats from China, Pakistan and American primacy. Neoclassical realism treats such a partnership as a product of its threat environment; when the environment shifts, the pillars shift. The statement is half right: one pillar has cracked, one has changed character, and one survives as dependence rather than choice.
Arms trade: weakened, not replaced
- The share is falling. On SIPRI data Russia supplied 70% of India’s arms imports in 2011–15 but 40% in 2021–25, with France at 29% and Israel at 15%.
- Causes: deliberate diversification (Rafale, the 26 Rafale-M contract of April 2025, American aircraft); indigenisation under Atmanirbhar Bharat; Russian delivery slippage after 2022, which left the last S-400 squadrons due only in 2026; and sanctions-hit payments.
- Path dependence still binds. Su-30MKI fighters, T-90 tanks, Kilo-class submarines and the S-400, which the IAF chief said downed Pakistani aircraft in May 2025, need Russian spares for a decade. The 23rd Annual Summit (5 December 2025) committed to joint manufacture of spares, and BrahMos has made India an exporter.
- Verdict: the pillar has moved from new acquisition to legacy sustainment.
Economic ties: bigger but narrower
- Trade sat below $15 billion through the 2010s, then rose to about $69 billion in 2024–25 on discounted crude; Indian exports stayed under $5 billion, mainly pharmaceuticals, machinery and chemicals.
- This is a commodity flow, not an economic partnership. Unspendable rupee balances pushed settlement towards other currencies, and US sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil (October 2025) cut volumes until the 2026 Hormuz crisis sent Indian refiners back to Russian crude.
- New elements: the Programme for Strategic Areas of Economic Cooperation till 2030, a $100 billion target, India–EAEU free trade talks, labour mobility, the Chennai–Vladivostok corridor and further Kudankulam units.
Congruent geopolitics: the pillar that has cracked
- The China problem. The “no limits” statement of 4 February 2022 and Moscow’s wartime dependence on Beijing mean Russia cannot weigh against China on the Line of Actual Control, the original logic of the 1971 treaty.
- Divergence in Asia. Sergei Lavrov has called Western Indo-Pacific strategies an attempt to draw India into “anti-China games”, while India sits in the Quad. Russia began Druzhba exercises with Pakistan in 2016 and recognised the Taliban government in July 2025.
- Residual convergence. Both want multipolarity, the idea Yevgeny Primakov pressed from 1996, cooperate on counter-terrorism and work through BRICS and the SCO. Russia backs a permanent Security Council seat for India. But Moscow means an order against the West; India means one with room for itself.
What carries the relationship now
C. Raja Mohan argued (Foreign Policy, 2021) that the old convergence had broken down and that India now pursues an interest-based rather than sentimental policy. Nandan Unnikrishnan had earlier framed the tie on five pillars, adding science and culture to the triad, and stressed that each side still needs the other (2017). Chietigj Bajpaee calls the present trajectory a managed decline (2024). The new supports are energy security, strategic hedging against Russia’s absorption by China, and the display of autonomy under American pressure: India kept buying despite the 2025 tariff penalty, and Putin was in New Delhi for the BRICS summit in September 2026, days before Washington’s Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act became law.
Conclusion
The triad has not vanished, but it stands unevenly. Arms persist as inheritance, trade as one-way energy dependence, and congruence has given way to hedging within India’s multi-alignment. The relationship now works as an insurance policy for Indian autonomy, and its future depends on adding co-production and balanced trade.