Russia-India Relations: Multipolarity in Practice?

Dmitry Gorenburg Jeff Edmonds Julian Waller Jeff Kucik Decker Eveleth

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Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022, the relationship between Russia and India has been an area of increased research interest, reflecting growing concern with the global trend toward great power competition across multiple poles. This report examines this relationship by analyzing a variety of indicators of trends in political, military, and economic cooperation. We present shifts in these three relationship dimensions in light of both historical trends and the recent past. In doing so, we identify constraints and drivers of the relationship, then use an indicator-based method to make controlled comparisons across and within relationship dimensions.

Major categories for these indicators include the following:Political elements, such as policy coordination mechanisms, public diplomacy, and elite inter­actions

Military elements, such as military diploma­cy, military cooperation, technical cooperation, exercises and training, coordination and infor­mation sharing, and basing and access

Economic elements, such as economic coordi­nation, institutional linkages, cross-border trade, investments, loans, and engagement in strategic sectors, such as oil

Key findings

The Russia-India relationship has largely held steady in recent years, despite the stresses caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent orientation away from the West and further toward China. The direct effects of the Russia-Ukraine war have been uneven. India initially limited its political and military ties to Russia as it sought to maintain a relationship with Russia while avoiding alienating key Western partners. At the same time, India has consistently refused to adopt the Western position on the Russia-Ukraine war, instead issuing evenhanded calls for the end of hostilities. Over time, as Western unity in policy toward Russia began to fray, India became less concerned about Western perceptions and reactivated its relationships with Russia in these spheres.