Russia’s President Vladimir Putin awards India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia July 9, 2024.
Evgenia Novozhenina | Reuters
As India reels under punitive U.S. tariffs over its purchases of Russian oil, New Delhi is all set to host President Vladmir Putin for a two-day visit, signaling its determination to deepen ties with Moscow.
The visit indicates that India wants to “maintain its relations with Russia, especially at a time when it sees the United States as unreliable and China as hostile,” said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of political risk consultancy firm Eurasia Group.
Putin will be in India on Dec 4-5 for the 23rd India-Russia annual summit, with experts saying the two countries will extend their strategic and trade ties.
While this visit was planned before U.S.-India ties soured, it signifies that “New Delhi is not beholden to the whims of the Trump administration and that it maintains an independent foreign policy,” said Chietigj Bajpaee, senior research fellow for South Asia in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House.
Kremlin said last week that Putin’s visit was of “great importance” with the Russian president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to discuss the “scope of Russia-India special and privileged strategic partnership in politics, trade and economy,” among other issues.
The two leaders are expected to issue a joint statement and may also sign a “wide range of bilateral interdepartmental and business agreements” it added.
Expanding trade will be the major focus of the summit, which could help India achieve a more balanced bilateral trade with Russia, said Aleksei Zakharov, visiting fellow at Indian think tank Observer Research Foundation.
Trade disparity
In fiscal year ended March 2025, trade between India and Russia stood at $68.72 billion, heavily skewed in favor of Russia, according to data government-backed India Brand Equity Foundation. Indian exports to Russia were just $4.88 billion while imports stood at $63.84 billion, it said. The countries aim to expand bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030.
India could ramp up its shipments of machinery, chemicals, food and pharmaceutical products to Russia, while Moscow is pitching its technological solutions for civilian nuclear energy, including building small modular reactors in India, said Zakharov.
“New Delhi and Moscow are seeking to compensate for India’s reduced purchases of Russian oil by diversifying their trade relationship to other areas, including defense and civil nuclear cooperation,” said Bajpaee of Chatham House.
The two leaders are likely to discuss India’s purchase of Russia’s next-generation Su-57 fighter jets and its advanced S-500 missile defense shield, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Some experts, however, have raised doubts over Russia’s ability to honor a defense deal.
“India and Russia will talk about weapons, but Russia can barely deliver on the S-400 already on order because of chip shortages,” said Bremmer of Eurasia Group, adding that “India is not interested in the su-57 fighter.”
Between 2020 and 2024, Russia was the largest supplier of arms to India with 36% share, followed by France at 33% and Israel at 13%, according to data from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
But Russia’s share has been declining from 55% in 2015–19 and 72% in 2010–14. India is shifting sourcing of arms toward suppliers such as France, Israel and the U.S., SIPRI noted in its report in March this year.
Balancing act
India has been under pressure from the U.S. to cut back on its imports of Russian oil as Washington claims this enables Moscow to withstanding pressure of economic sanctions by the West and continue its war against Ukraine.
New Delhi incurs an additional 25% levy, on top of 25% tariffs on its exports to the U.S. as a “penalty” for its purchases of Russian energy. The 50% U.S. tariffs on Indian goods, amongst the highest on any country, came into effect on Aug. 27.
The U.S. has accused India of importing Russian oil and reselling it in the open market for a “significant profit,” enabling Moscow to fund its aggression. New Delhi has said that its oil imports are based on the “objective of ensuring energy security of 1.4 billion people of India.”
In its bid to mend ties with the U.S., New Delhi has ramped up energy purchases from Washington with Indian state-owned oil companies signing a 1-year deal to import around 2.2 million tonnes per annum of liquefied petroleum gas from the U.S.
The country has also been cutting back on its Russian oil purchases after the U.S. sanctioned Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.
However, Sumit Ritolia, lead research analyst at energy intelligence firm Kpler told CNBC that Russian oil exports to India will drop in the short term but will pick up through new intermediatory companies that can circumvent the sanctions.
A lack of U.S.-India trade deal could mean revenue loss of $20 billion in trade surplus for India while the cost advantage with Russian discounted oil was about $8 billion, said Arpit Chaturvedi, advisor with Teneo’s geopolitical risk advisory team. “Weighed only in monetary terms, the trade with U.S. is much more important for India,” he added.
Putin’s visit to India comes at a time when the U.S. has been striving to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
On Tuesday, Putin, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met in Moscow for five hours to discuss the end of war between Russia and Ukraine. Kremlin reportedly said the meeting was constructive but there was no breakthrough.
India will be hoping for an eventual peace deal as that will help reduce scrutiny of the India-Russia relationship, said Bajpaee.
