7 ms·

It will eventually, that’s where things are headed. India-Russia relationship has significantly dwindled, truth is there isn’t much commonality there. You can

It will eventually, that’s where things are headed. India-Russia relationship has significantly dwindled, truth is there isn’t much commonality there. You can actually see the propaganda coming from the Russian side to sow distrust between US-India on a regular basis. India still has to maintain the Russia relationship because they are dependent on them for military spares, due to their own lack of investment in domestic industry. Also I think they don’t want Russia to become too close to China and have no other outlet because that would be a disaster for India, given India-China border relations. So these visits are just to maintain the illusion I feel. Long term India is more aligned with the Western bloc, like you mentioned OP. Examples of alignment can be found in multilateral places such as Artemis Accords, QUAD, etc. not to mention the shared China concerns and people to people relationships, hardly any people to people relationships exists between India and Russia.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> India-Russia relationship has significantly dwindled, truth is there isn’t much commonality there India burns coal and oil [1]. It mines 70% of its own coal [2], importing the remaining 30% from Indonesia (60% of imports) and, equally, South Africa, Australia and Russia (10% each) [3]. When it comes to oil, however, the ratios are reversed: 80% is imported [4], 40% of which comes from Russia [5]. Better yet, that oil is cheap [6]. That energy dependency undergirds the modern Indo-Russian relationship. Historically, it was weapons. But given the demonstrated inferiority of Russian weapons technology and their recent suzerainty to China, India's geopolitical rival on both its Chinese and Pakistani borders, that's increasingly just for show. (New Delhi has no influence over Russia becoming "too close to China.") [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_India#/media/File:Energy_consumption_India.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_India#/media/File:En... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_India#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_India#Consumption [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1237506/coal-import-share-india-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1237506/coal-import-shar... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_industry_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_industry_in_India [5] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-makes-up-40-indian-oil-imports-dents-opecs-share-2023-10-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-makes-up-40-india... [6] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/indias-may-oil-imports-russia-record-high-saudi-lowest-10-mth-2024-06-21/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/indias-may-oil-i...
- seatac76 2y ago
  I agree energy undergirds the contemporary India Russia relationship but that is a very recent phenomena, a product of Russia’s war on Ukraine. India buys it because it is cheap and helps with post pandemic recovery. There is no guarantee India will continue buying oil from Russia in the quantities that it does now once the discount goes away. Some diversification aside, it is cheaper and faster to get oil from the Gulf, India’s traditional oil supplier, so it remains to be seen just how long Indian oil purchases from Russia will last. So I wouldn’t call it permanent feature just yet. As far as Indian influence on Russia, there is some, perhaps not as much as Indian strategists would like to assume. But it would be a folly to assume Russia wants to be a client state of China. There is precedent for historic distrust and miscalculation[1]. They too would like options, they did in the end allow for Brahmos missiles to be exported to Philippines ( squarely pointed at the Chinese) so suzerainty is not established yet. China also does not want to get too close to Russia, given its larger economic relationship with the West. You can see the stressors emerging in China driving a hard bargain for Siberian gas pipelines. In the end everyone is balancing here. [1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-russia-lessons-putin https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-russia-lesso...

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> India-Russia relationship has significantly dwindled, truth is there isn’t much commonality there India burns coal and oil [1]. It mines 70% of its own coal [2], importing the remaining 30% from Indonesia (60% of imports) and, equally, South Africa, Australia and Russia (10% each) [3]. When it comes to oil, however, the ratios are reversed: 80% is imported [4], 40% of which comes from Russia [5]. Better yet, that oil is cheap [6]. That energy dependency undergirds the modern Indo-Russian relationship. Historically, it was weapons. But given the demonstrated inferiority of Russian weapons technology and their recent suzerainty to China, India's geopolitical rival on both its Chinese and Pakistani borders, that's increasingly just for show. (New Delhi has no influence over Russia becoming "too close to China.") [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_India#/media/File:Energy_consumption_India.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_India#/media/File:En... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_India#Consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_India#Consumption [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1237506/coal-import-share-india-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1237506/coal-import-shar... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_industry_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_and_gas_industry_in_India [5] https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-makes-up-40-indian-oil-imports-dents-opecs-share-2023-10-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/india/russia-makes-up-40-india... [6] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/indias-may-oil-imports-russia-record-high-saudi-lowest-10-mth-2024-06-21/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/indias-may-oil-i...

seatac76 2y ago
I agree energy undergirds the contemporary India Russia relationship but that is a very recent phenomena, a product of Russia’s war on Ukraine. India buys it because it is cheap and helps with post pandemic recovery. There is no guarantee India will continue buying oil from Russia in the quantities that it does now once the discount goes away. Some diversification aside, it is cheaper and faster to get oil from the Gulf, India’s traditional oil supplier, so it remains to be seen just how long Indian oil purchases from Russia will last. So I wouldn’t call it permanent feature just yet. As far as Indian influence on Russia, there is some, perhaps not as much as Indian strategists would like to assume. But it would be a folly to assume Russia wants to be a client state of China. There is precedent for historic distrust and miscalculation[1]. They too would like options, they did in the end allow for Brahmos missiles to be exported to Philippines ( squarely pointed at the Chinese) so suzerainty is not established yet. China also does not want to get too close to Russia, given its larger economic relationship with the West. You can see the stressors emerging in China driving a hard bargain for Siberian gas pipelines. In the end everyone is balancing here. [1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-russia-lessons-putin https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi-jinping-russia-lesso...