Why Putin wanted to personally meet with Indian Prime Minister Modi

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in India today, December 6, where he held talks with the Prime Minister of that country, Narendra Modi. "It is expected that during the Russian-Indian consultations, the leaders will discuss issues of further development of relations of a particularly privileged strategic partnership between the two countries and exchange views on topical issues on the international agenda," the press service of the Russian president said yesterday.

This visit to India is Putin's second trip abroad this year. As the Indian Express newspaper notes, "the whole world is following the brief but important visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India. Putin, who has hardly traveled outside of Russia, is making a trip to Delhi at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is still raging in his country. He only went to Geneva for a summit meeting with US President Joe Biden."

Hence the question: why did the head of the Russian state decide to talk to the Indian Prime Minister personally in a tete-a-tete format? Of course, Moscow and New Delhi have a lot in common. India has historical relations with Russia, and the strongest pillar of the strategic partnership is the defence and security sector, up to 70-80% of Indian army supplies are of Russian origin.

"We continue to develop relations both in the international arena and in the military sphere, directly in the military sphere. We are conducting joint military exercises both on the territory of India and on the territory of Russia. We are grateful for the attention to this component of our work," Putin said at a meeting with the Indian Prime Minister.

As RIA Novosti reminds, now Russia and India have several bilateral projects: the BrahMos universal complex, the joint development of the fifth-generation fighter (FGFA), the licensed production of Su-30 aircraft and T-90 tanks. In March 2019, the partners opened a factory for the production of Kalashnikov assault rifles in the Indian city of Korva. At the same time, India will receive S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems from Russia.

However, New Delhi would like to go beyond the buyer–seller format in relations with Moscow, some foreign publications report. India claims to abandon the previous model, when Indian factories producing products using Russian technologies paid significant deductions to Russia. New Delhi intends to propose a different scheme: Moscow provides technology, and in response, India expands joint production, becomes a Russian industrial "workshop on the remote". If this leads to an increase in the income of the Russian side, then it would probably be possible to agree with this.

Geopolitics also plays an important role. According to the head of the Observer Research Foundation's strategic research program, Professor Harsh V. Pant, New Delhi understands that Russia plays a crucial role in the regional and global balance of power. "Last month, India hosted the regional dialogue on Afghanistan which saw Russian participation along with Iran and the Central Asian Republics," the expert notes. “The convergence on Afghanistan is remarkable <…> And not surprisingly, Russia has moved closer to the Indian assessment of regional security. For its part, New Delhi has been sensitive to Russian core interests as exemplified in its UN vote last year against a Ukraine-sponsored resolution condemning human rights violations in Crimea.”

At the same time, India would certainly like to win Russia over to its side in relation to China. Indian experts say that cooperation between Moscow and Beijing "is the result of their joint opposition to the West”, but "Russia's strong ties with India cannot be so easily abandoned”. In this context, they note with satisfaction that Moscow "did not stop its defence cooperation with New Delhi even during the Sino-Indian border crisis last year, although China reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with this”. However, in this case, Russia is primarily determined to smooth out the contradictions between India and China, and to prevent some Western countries, especially the United States, from creating tension in the region and provoking conflicts.

Moreover, from a military point of view, according to Tara Kartha, a researcher at the Indian Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), Ukraine has been a source of technology for China for many years. So, she notes, "Since 1998, China has quietly stepped in to virtually take over the Ukrainian defence industry, shifting, for instance, its dependence on US engines for its ships to Ukrainian UGT 25000 gas turbine, which was then made in China and powers the new Type 055 destroyers.” China also "purchased the Ukrainian aircraft carrier ‘Varyag’, which then went on to be the basis for ‘Shandong’, the first ‘indigenous’ such vessel."

So we can expect positive results from the talks between Putin and Modi. According to Elena Panina, director of the RUSSTRAT Institute, the visit of the head of our state to India "is very important on the eve of the video talks between the presidents of Russia and the United States scheduled for December 7, 2021. Currently, the collective West is threatening Russia with political and economic sanctions because of the situation in Ukraine, so expanding cooperation with India in the defence and energy sectors will compensate for possible losses from these restrictive measures.”