As India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, landed in Moscow on Monday, it was straight into the warm embrace of Vladimir Putin. Modi said the visit – his first since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – was to cement the “bonds of friendship” between the two countries, and later effusively described Russia as India’s “all-weather friend and trusted ally”.
The India-Russia relationship runs deep, dating back to the cold war, and Russia has long been the largest supplier of arms to India. Since he was elected in 2014, Modi has built up a much-publicised rapport with Putin, the two leaders having had more than 20 meetings.
However, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 put an unprecedented strain on their ties and forced India to tread a tricky path in balancing its relationships with both Putin and the west.
India refused to join western countries in condemning Putin’s invasion and abstained from all UN votes denouncing Russia. It also eagerly became the largest buyer of cheap Russian oil, still sending billions to the country’s coffers, which was seen by some to undermine western sanction efforts. Nonetheless, India’s displeasure with Putin’s actions was not entirely concealed, with Modi stating that “now is not the era for war”.
The Indian prime minister’s decision to strengthen his relationship with the western leaders who are Putin’s biggest critics, including the US president, Joe Biden, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has been met frostily in the corridors of the Kremlin. Similarly, Putin’s increasingly close ties with Beijing are viewed with great suspicion in New Delhi, where China is viewed as the greatest threat.
But while the geopolitical landscape was markedly different from 2019, when Modi was last in Moscow, the leaders went to great pains to display their continued bonhomie over the two-day visit which ended on Tuesday night.
As they greeted each other on Monday, Modi told Putin he was looking forward to their “chit-chat”. During a teatime tour around Putin’s residence, Putin expressed his delight that his “dear friend” Modi had made the journey to Russia, saying he was “very happy” to see him again. “To visit a friend at home is, of course, a great joy,” Modi replied.
The pair then jumped in a golf buggy driven by the Russian leader and whizzed off to view his collection of horses. Parallels with Putin’s visit to North Korea a few weeks earlier, where he cruised the streets of Pyongyang at the wheel of a limousine laughing and joking alongside the supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, did not go unnoticed.
Later on Monday night, Putin then hosted an informal “special dinner” for the Indian prime minister, an honour that the Kremlin emphasised was reserved for very few.
The Kremlin had spoken gleefully of Modi’s decision to make Russia among his first international trips after winning a third term in power in June. In a TV interview over the weekend, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said western leaders were “jealous” of the summit, adding: “And they are not mistaken, there is something to attach great importance to.”
Indian officials were more reserved, however, with New Delhi emphasising that the visit, Modi’s first in five years, was about bilateral relations, adding that India sought to “play a supportive role for a peaceful and stable region”.
On Tuesday’s formal summit, Modi said he and Putin had discussed everything from new Indian embassies in Russia to increased cooperation on trade. Yet the complexities of India’s diplomatic tightrope walk over Ukraine were also uncomfortably on display.
Just a few hours before Modi touched down in Moscow, Russian air missiles struck Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, among other civilian targets, killing dozens and prompting global condemnation. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, described it as “a devastating blow to peace efforts to see the leader of the world’s largest democracy hug the world’s most bloody criminal in Moscow on such a day”.
The summit took also place on the same day that the Nato summit kicked off in Washington, where Biden and other leaders are expected to announce a historic defence package for Ukraine.
Putin’s war has also become an awkward domestic issue for Modi after it emerged that dozens, if not hundreds, of Indians have been recruited unknowingly or against their will to work for the Russian army on the frontlines in Ukraine, with at least two Indians killed in strikes. After the issue was raised in their informal chat, Putin promised Modi that all Indians would be discharged from the Russian military and sent home.
At Monday night’s dinner, Modi reportedly made his most direct appeal for Putin to end the war in Ukraine, telling the Russian president that “there is no solution on the battlefield”. Yet up against Putin’s megalomaniacal ambitions, few analysts believed Modi’s words would have any sway.
