Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Moscow on November 17, 2025, meeting both his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin is also expected to visit New Delhi on December 5-6, 2025, to attend the Russia-India Forum. These meetings will mark Putin’s first visit to India since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Putin’s overseas visits, under Western pressure and sanctions, are significant in showing which countries accept and support Russia. During this period, Putin has visited some Central Asian and Gulf countries as well as China, and will soon visit India. Speaking during Jaishankar’s meetings in Moscow, Lavrov stated, “Relations with India are at a privileged strategic partnership level and are among Russia’s foreign policy priorities.”[i]
From Moscow’s perspective, elevating relations with New Delhi to a higher level will have several pragmatic outcomes. First, it will provide an ally in the international arena against the West, similar to the strategic partnership Moscow has with China. In this way, large and medium-sized countries that act on the idea of “multipolarity” will, indirectly, form a counterweight against the West. Second, it aims to gain more support from the world regarding the war in Ukraine. Previously, India could openly criticize Russia on the Ukraine issue, but at this point, it does not dwell on the matter. For example, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement to Putin during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in September 2022—“We are not in a time of war[ii] still remains memorable.
Third, a strong partner will be found to help ease pressures in energy and trade. In this regard, the sanctions and additional tariffs imposed by the United States (USA) on India deeply affect its energy and trade relations with Russia. When India conducts business with Russia in the energy sector, it faces sanctions from the West and suffers trade losses; when it ends energy relations with Russia, its commercial ties with Moscow are heavily impacted. Therefore, elevating relations with Russia creates a dilemma for India and requires a challenging effort. Fourth and most importantly, Russia will be able to expand its sphere of influence by gaining support in regional and global geopolitics. In this context, Central Asian countries, Afghanistan, and China can be cited as examples of actors where the two countries share common interests. Russia’s influence over Eurasia appears very attractive for India and provides a useful framework for potential cooperation. For example, as in many other matters, India may be following Russia’s example in approaching the Taliban administration in Afghanistan. In this regard, Russia facilitates India’s ability to establish relations with certain Eurasian countries or actors.
From New Delhi’s perspective, elevating relations with Moscow offers benefits but also requires a challenging process. The most significant difficulty is undoubtedly maintaining energy and trade relations with Russia under the sanctions pressure from the USA. Beyond a certain point, advancing relations with Russia could place India in a position of having to make a choice in foreign policy. This may represent a situation that goes beyond strategic autonomy in foreign policy. Previously, India was supposed to face CAATSA sanctions due to the purchase of the S-400 from Russia but was exempted; in the future, India may not receive such leniencies from the USA. Another challenge is that establishing “special” and “priority” strategic partnerships with Russia could narrow India’s geopolitical influence on the Asian continent and in the Pacific. In this context, New Delhi may have to establish “cautious partnerships” rather than “privileged partnerships” with Washington in the Indo-Pacific. This could reduce the effectiveness of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) and raise questions about its future. Indeed, India’s presence in the QUAD has long been a significant point of criticism by both Russia and China. Geopolitically, advancing India’s relations with Russia and China will naturally lead to a distancing from the Western bloc.
India’s greatest gain from the partnership with Russia is the opportunity to elevate its relations with Eurasian countries. The partnerships being developed with the Taliban administration in Afghanistan are an example of this. The Taliban engaging with Russia, China, and India could be interpreted as isolating or encircling Pakistan in the region. This strategy is increasingly seen as highly beneficial for New Delhi. In this regard, it can be argued that Russia has begun to involve India in certain partnerships in Eurasia or has started to encourage it in this matter.
Based on this, some predictions can be made about the future of India-Russia relations. The first is that the relations could become institutionalized and result in concrete bilateral and multilateral cooperation. If these relations do not produce some positive outcomes on the ground and at the negotiating table through tangible cooperation, India’s gains could decrease, and under Western sanctions, India could become geopolitically isolated and enter a deadlock. The second is that the economic benefits from relations with Russia might be limited, which could lead India toward a strategic mistake in foreign policy. In this context, the Trump administration, acting on a cost-benefit basis, might not view New Delhi’s rapprochement with Moscow as a major loss. Ultimately, if India pursues a foreign policy trajectory focused on Russia and China, it may face increased American pressure and sanctions.
[i] “Russia Proposes Cooperation with India to Develop Shipbuilding Industry”, Maritime Executive, https://maritime-executive.com/article/russia-proposes-cooperation-with-india-to-develop-shipbuilding-industry, (Date of Access: 20.11.2025).
[ii] “Indian Prime Minister Modi to Putin: Now is not the time to fight.”, Euronews, https://tr.euronews.com/2022/09/16/hindistan-basbakani-modiden-putine-simdi-savasmanin-zamani-degil, (Date of Access: 20.11.2025).
