Putin lauds India as energy and military ties bolstered

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of their meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, yesterday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday lauded India as “a great power” in New Delhi as the traditional allies bolstered their military and energy ties, despite Washington’s increasing courtship of the world’s largest democracy.India confirmed that Russia this month began deliveries of its long-range S-400 ground-to-air missile defence system, which has prompted threats of US sanctions.A 10-year defence technical co-operation agreement and a one-year oil contract were among the deals signed as Putin held talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.It was only Putin’s second trip abroad since the coronavirus pandemic began — he skipped both the G20 and COP26 summits this year — and comes after a June summit with US President Joe Biden in Geneva. “We perceive India as a great power, a friendly nation and a time-tested friend,” Putin said in the Indian capital alongside Modi.Russia has long been a key arms supplier to India, which is looking to modernise its armed forces, and the S-400 missile system is one of their most high-profile current contracts.“Supplies have begun this month and will continue,” Indian foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said after the summit.The deal is worth over $5bn and was first signed in 2018, but it threatens to upend the burgeoning relationship between New Delhi and Washington.The US has warned of sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which is aimed at reining in Russia, and the state department said last week that no decisions had been made on any waivers for India.“Our Indian friends clearly explained that they are a sovereign country and that they will decide whose weapons to buy and who will be India’s partner,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters yesterday.India was close to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, a relationship that has endured, with both calling it a “special privileged strategic partnership”.Putin’s visit was “hugely symbolic”, said Nandan Unnikrishnan from the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation think-tank.“There has been a lot of speculation about the nature of the India-Russia relationship and whether it is fraying because of Russia’s closeness with China and India’s with the US, but this visit puts all that to rest.”In its efforts to address a rising China, Washington has set up the QUAD security dialogue with India, Japan, and Australia, raising concerns in both Beijing and Moscow.