To a greater extent than on specific agreements, the summit was aimed at securing already-achieved successes and promising areas of cooperation in the economic sphere: support for mutual investments, the further development of payment infrastructure, the stimulation of settlements in national currencies, and the development of the insurance and logistics system.
Narendra Modi’s official visit to Moscow, which took place on July 8-9, has never before caused such a wide resonance. This, however, can be explained: it was the Indian prime minister’s first trip to Russia since 2019.
The agreement to hold bilateral summits annually was recorded back in 2000 in the Declaration of Strategic Partnership, and since then, summit meetings have been perceived as quite routine. Summits were held regularly, alternately in Russia and India, and on the margins a substantial package of documents and mandatory joint declarations were signed.
At first, the frequency of summits was disrupted by the pandemic: the meet-up did not take place in 2020, and Vladimir Putin only visited New Delhi in December 2021. The ball was in India’s court at the time, but since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, New Delhi has taken a very cautious position, refraining from any sweeping gestures that could be interpreted by the West as support for Moscow. True, in 2022, on the side-lines of the SCO summit in Samarkand, negotiations between Putin and Modi did take place.
At the same time, it cannot be said that the dynamics of relations suffered significantly due to the lack of bilateral summits. The conflict with the West has forced Russia to redirect trade flows to Asia, including, to a significant extent, to India. Thanks to the supply of Russian crude oil, trade turnover at the end of 2023 reached a record level of $65 billion, and Russia became one of India’s four largest trading partners.
Some observers assumed that a separate bilateral summit would not take place again this year, and that the Indian prime minister would only visit Kazan in the fall to participate in the BRICS summit. However, Modi decided otherwise, and made his first official visit since returning to power for a third term to Russia. But here, too, the balance between Russia and the West was maintained: Modi immediately went from Moscow to Austria, which became the first visit of an Indian leader to this country in the last 40 years.
Modimania in Moscow
Modi’s foreign trips are always accompanied by an active PR campaign and, as a rule, include meetings with Indian communities, which are seen as promoters of India’s soft power and interests abroad. The agenda of the prime minister’s visit to Moscow was built on the same principle: an important feature was the meeting with the diaspora, which took place at the Indian embassy.
The Indian community in Russia numbers about 25-30 thousand people. Although, of course, it is not as numerous and influential as, for example, the diasporas in the USA and the UK, it is nevertheless the Indian diaspora that often serves as a bridge in establishing ties between the business communities of the two countries.
In an address to his compatriots, Modi highly appreciated the role of representatives of the diaspora in Russia, calling them “ambassadors of the nation,” and announced the opening of Indian consulates general in Kazan and Yekaterinburg. The Prime Minister did not skimp on praise for Russia. “On hearing the word Russia, the first thing that comes to every Indian’s mind is ‘India’s partner in happiness and sorrow’, ‘India's trusted friend’,” he said. “No matter how many degrees below zero the temperature in Russia falls in winter, Indo-Russian ties are always full of warmth.”
The Indian diaspora in Moscow was also very active, organising an enthusiastic reception for Modi at the hotel where he was staying. One of the prominent representatives of the Indian community, President of the Political Organization of Foreign Friends of the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party – the ruling party in India) Sammy Manoj Kotwani, shortly before the visit, wrote a letter to Putin and Modi asking for permission to build the first Hindu temple in Moscow, which will be financed privately. Currently, there are Hare Krishna congregations in the capital, but the Indian community does not have its own temple (mandir). The letter states that the temple will become not only a religious and spiritual centre for the Indian diaspora, but also “evidence of strong ties between the peoples” of the two countries and a new landmark of the capital, and will also increase the number of Indian tourists.
Economics and technology
This time the summit was not replete with concluded contracts. The largest agreements signed on its side-lines were the agreement between the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and the National Investment Promotion Agency Invest India on investments of up to 100 billion rubles in Russian companies entering the Indian market, and the agreement between RDIF and the Indian company Enso Group on investments of up to 20 billion rubles in shipbuilding projects.
To a greater extent than on specific agreements, the summit was aimed at securing already-achieved successes and promising areas of cooperation in the economic sphere: support for mutual investments, the further development of payment infrastructure, the stimulation of settlements in national currencies, and the development of the insurance and logistics system. Taking into account the achievement of the previously set level of $30 billion, the parties fixed a new goal – to increase trade turnover to $100 billion by 2030.
For the development of cooperation in the Russian Far East, the signing of the Programme of Russian-Indian cooperation in the trade, economic and investment spheres in the Far East for 2024-2029, as well as the principles of cooperation in the Arctic zone, became significant. Back in 2019, at a summit in Vladivostok, an agreement was reached on India’s allocation of a $1 billion credit line for the development of the Far East, but this agreement is still not implemented.
At the summit, attention was also paid to the traditional pillars of Russian-Indian relations – military-technical cooperation and nuclear energy. An important part of Modi’s programme was a visit to the Atom pavilion at VDNKh, where an exposition dedicated to the achievements of domestic nuclear energy is presented. In this area, Russia remains an indispensable partner for India, and recently a new promising area of cooperation has taken shape here – the construction of low-power nuclear power plants. Here Russia also has advantages: the only operating small nuclear power plant in the world, Akademik Lomonosov, was built by Rosatom in Chukotka. As reported by the general director of the state corporation Alexey Likhachev, who gave a tour of the exposition especially for the two leaders, Russia offers India cooperation in the construction of tropical low-power nuclear power plants with deep localisation, up to the transfer of all parts for construction.
As for military-technical cooperation, the Russian military-industrial complex is working to serve the needs of the special military operation in Ukraine, and one cannot expect the conclusion of any new major contracts for the supply of weapons to India in the foreseeable future. The joint statement emphasised the already strong trend towards the co-production of parts and components in India and technology transfer, for which a new working group on technology cooperation is being established.
Indian karma
One of the main topics of the summit, as expected, was the situation in Ukraine. Apparently, this was discussed at the tête à tête meeting between Putin and Modi. On the one hand, India certainly remains one of the key beneficiaries of this conflict in the economic sphere. The republic has become a hub for the purchase of Russian crude oil, its processing and subsequent resale to the West. In addition, parallel imports of high-tech goods come to Russia through India.
On the other hand, in the political sphere, the Ukrainian conflict creates more challenges and threats for India than opportunities. Despite the fact that New Delhi is generally comfortable with its role as a balancer, and for most of the history of independent India, its leadership has managed to adhere to the principle of “strategic autonomy” more or less successfully, in the context of renewed confrontation between Russia and the West, maintaining neutrality has become much more difficult. This is the reason for Modi’s words that “now is not an era of wars,” which were first heard at negotiations with Putin in Samarkand in 2022. At a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin, Modi reiterated that “war is not the solution.”
At the summit, another topic directly related to the conflict in Ukraine was discussed – the return to the homeland of Indians who, according to New Delhi, were fraudulently recruited into the Russian Armed Forces to participate in the Ukraine conflict. According to the statement of the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, of the 35 to 50 Indian citizens who have served in the Russian army, 10 have already returned home and two have died. While recognising the resonance of this topic for Indian society, one should not exaggerate its significance for bilateral relations. Therefore, an agreement on the early dismissal of Indian citizens from the Russian army, which was reached following the meeting between Putin and Modi in Novo-Ogarevo, will allow the Indian prime minister, first of all, to win additional “points” with the domestic audience.
In his opening remarks at the talks, Modi seemed to be addressing his own voters: he said that cooperation with Moscow would protect the interests of Indian farmers, provide gasoline and diesel fuel to ordinary Indians, keep inflation under control and create jobs. India needs Russia precisely for the reasons that the prime minister listed: the purchase of fertilisers for agriculture, energy resources for Indian industry, and technology, including that which only Russia can provide so far. However, after the start of the military operation in Ukraine, there was a certain distance toward India and Russia which was demonstrated by the West – the question is, how sustainable is this trend.
