The forthcoming visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi in the earlier December 2025 to attend the 23rd Indo-Russian Annual Summit marks a critical juncture in regional and global geopolitics. It is Putin’s first trip to India since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, a conflict that has left Moscow diplomatically isolated and economically constrained. Yet India has emerged as one of Russia’s most dependable lifelines, sustaining bilateral trade, defence cooperation, and energy flows at an unmatched scale. Therefore, the summit is expected to deepen collaboration in defence manufacturing, long-term energy deals, technology transfers, and alternative payment mechanisms designed to bypass Western sanctions. For New Delhi, the engagement is a deliberate effort to maximize geopolitical leverage by maintaining strong ties with a sanctioned great power, while for Moscow, it provides economic relief, political legitimacy, and strategic reassurance.
India’s diplomacy toward Russia exposes a striking contradiction. While publicly claiming “strategic neutrality,” New Delhi functions as Moscow’s most reliable political ally, repeatedly abstaining from key UN resolutions and capitalizing on discounted Russian exports. By shielding Russia from international pressure despite Western sanctions and the ongoing Ukraine war, India enables Moscow’s military objectives, undermines global sanctions regimes, and weakens the rules-based international order. Exploiting Russia’s isolation for its own strategic and resource gains, India has become a de facto enabler, complicit in prolonging the conflict in Ukraine.
Key diplomatic indicators reinforce this trend. India has obtained cheaper oil, weapons, and technology from Russia, thereby indirectly prolonging the conflict in Ukraine. Although affirming the diversification of military suppliers, it is still the case that 68-70% of India’s military imports are coming from Russia. Its proclaimed “strategic autonomy” remains largely superficial, creating an optical illusion of balance while masking deep dependency. Moscow leverages India’s position against US and EU sanctions, exposing the fragility of New Delhi’s foreign-policy independence.
Moreover, Putin’s visit amid US tariff pressures further exposes India’s surface-level autonomy. By signalling to Washington that it “has options,” India risks economic and diplomatic friction while aligning with a heavily sanctioned power. Russia’s public support for India against US tariffs reinforces New Delhi’s drift toward a Moscow-centered geopolitical orbit, undermining its Indo-Pacific credibility, weakening QUAD cohesion, and highlighting its failure to act as a mediator in the Ukraine conflict.
India’s information strategy is characterized by the elements of insecurity, inconsistency, and deliberate narrative engineering. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated avoidance or postponement of meetings with the US President, while at the same time giving a warm welcome to Putin, sends signals of both weakness and opportunism in the Indian leadership. By dispatching lower-rank officials to important events that New Delhi moves away from its classical non-alignment stance and shifts decisively toward Russia.
This dual approach applies to the Ukraine war, where on the one hand, India is giving support to Russia’s war machine through huge oil imports and at the same time, exporting explosive substances worth 1.4 million USD to Ukraine. Indian Cabinet ministers do not hold back and they generally make confrontational comments justifying the trade between Russia and India, which shows a lack of certainty and rather confusion in the strategy. India’s information operations aim to mask growing diplomatic isolation and a deteriorating international reputation, with strategic communication using ministers amplifying perceived insecurities. India, which is still facing international pressure, continues its trade with Russia, issuing hollow claims of upholding global peace.
Militarily, India’s dependence on Russia is deep, systemic, and long-standing. Since the year 1947, the Soviet Union has been the largest supplier of military equipment to India with a cumulative total of about $80 billion worth of military exports, which includes $50 billion during the period of 2005 to 2025. The Russian suppliers currently account for 68-70% of Indian military imports. The major weapon systems operated by Indian armed forces are Su-30MKI fighters, T-90 and T-72 main battle tanks, BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles, S-400 Triumf (5.5 billion) contract), INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier, Chakra II nuclear submarine, and BrahMos supersonic missile which is a joint venture product. Plans for an additional $1.2 billion in S-400 missile rounds reinforce structural dependency.
India’s participation is not limited to simply buying arms but also includes complete technology transfers, dual-use components, and joint production programs. In particular, Russia is providing the technology for its Su-57 stealth fighter to India for this purpose. India monthly ships to Russia $60–95 million worth of restricted dual-use components that are essential for military, UAV, communication, and artillery systems. Among the projects that show India’s deeper and tighter ties with Russia’s military-industrial complex are BrahMos, T-90, AK-203 rifles, and spares co-production; these are all on the list of sanctions-free cooperation between the two countries. Operational alignment is evident in reports of Indian nationals recruited into Russian combat units, with casualties and missing personnel indicating deeper complicity with Moscow’s war effort.
India’s reliance on Russian technology also constrains defence modernization. Preference for older Russian platforms over Western systems such as turning down F-35 acquisitions limits integration with Indo-Pacific allies and misuses taxpayer funds. Reliance on underperforming Russian systems delayed purchases like 114 Rafales, enabled corruption, and forced procurement of outdated or war-tested S-400 and S-500 systems.
Moreover, India has emerged as an indispensable economically to Moscow in recent years. The volume of trade between the two countries was $68.7 billion in the fiscal year of 2024-25, with India being the largest buyer at $63.8 billion (mainly oil, coal, fertilizers, and parts for defense) while only selling $4.9 billion, which caused the situation to be very much in favor of Moscow according to the strategic balance. Over the years, Indian imports of crude oil from Russia have multiplied up to 600% compared to 2022, thus they have been the main buyers of Russia’s oil exports (38% share) and the source of Moscow’s war machine funding. Indian private enterprises are still conducting sanction-busting trade but are doing so in a way that they are still able to access the Western markets, while the industrial elites are pushing for the foreign policy that is against the national interests and possible Indo-US trade deals. Furthermore, the West has been very critical of India’s trade relationship with Russia and to that effect, it has restricted the supply of certain technologies and parts. However, the issue has not deterred India from selling Russia the technologies that the latter can use for military purposes and the amount of such export is estimated to be between $60-$95 million monthly, thus helping Russian army to cope with the sanctions.
The Western powers have strongly criticized India’s actions. The US government has characterized India’s actions as “destabilizing,” holding India responsible for the strengthening of Russia’s military. President Trump has called India a “Kremlin laundromat,” having said that he would impose 100% tariffs on Indian imports. The EU has also spoken against India taking part in military drills with Russia, arguing that New Delhi’s friendship with Moscow is a barrier to deeper strategic cooperation. India’s pursuit of US military hardware, including potential F-35 acquisitions, alongside ongoing dependence on Russian oil, illustrates ambiguous alignment and unreliability as a strategic partner.
Across diplomacy, information operations, military procurement, technology transfers, and economic cooperation, India has positioned itself as one of Russia’s most valuable wartime partners. By encouraging Russia’s war efforts, reinforcing long-term defence dependency, and exploiting discounted resources, India demonstrates implicit complicity in sustaining Moscow’s military operations. Deep economic ties with a sanctioned power and structural defence dependence give Moscow leverage, enabling Putin to advance Russian interests in Asia. Collectively, India’s actions constitute a destabilizing force within the global rules-based order, undermining Indo-Pacific stability, weakening QUAD cohesion, and challenging Western-led efforts to maintain international norms.
In nutshell, Putin’s visit to India is likely to draw scrutiny and concern from Western capitals and the EU, highlighting New Delhi’s growing tilt toward a sanctioned Moscow. The summit underscores the need for India to carefully balance its relations with major powers to safeguard strategic credibility. How India navigates this partnership will be critical for its global standing and influence in the evolving Indo-Pacific order.
