AUGUST 2025
Guns and Oil
Continuity and Change in Russia-India Relations
By Tina Dolbaia, Vasabjit Banerjee, and Amanda Southeld
Introduction
In July 2024, on the same day a Russian missile smashed into Kyiv’s most prominent children’s hospital,
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at his suburban
residence near Moscow. During the visit, the two leaders discussed ways to strengthen trade and
enery ties between their countries. Weeks later, the Indian prime minister met with his Ukrainian
counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Kyiv, pledging to provide humanitarian assistance to the war-torn
country and highlighting that India’s position was one not of neutrality, but peace.
Modi’s diplomatic tightrope reects India’s careful positioning between the two competing blocs.
On the one hand, New Delhi is clearly uncomfortable with Moscow’s blatant disregard of basic
international principles. On the other hand, India’s attitude toward Russia continues to be inuenced
by historical anity between the two countries and India’s pursuit of strategic autonomy in its
foreign policy, an approach that seeks to elide alliances with any one power bloc. Despite Modi’s
assertions, on the international stage New Delhi has largely maintained a neutral-to-pro-Russian
tilt in regard to Russia’s war in Ukraine, usually abstaining from UN General Assembly resolutions
condemning Moscow’s actions. Bilaterally, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has
described Russo-Indian ties as the “one constant in world politics,” and many in New Delhi retain a
degree of sympathy for Moscow’s narrative of the war, which links it to NATO expansion into Russia’s
self-perceived sphere of inuence. Following the invasion, India has also become one of the largest
purchasers of Russian oil.
Yet there is a growing belief among the Western expert community that Russo-Indian ties are
undergoing “a managed decline” shaped by Moscow’s deteriorating international and regional
standing and its strengthened relations with Beijing—New Delhi’s rival in the Asia-Pacic. At the
same time, India has increased its cooperation with the United States, including in its historically
Russia-dominated defense-security space.
