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Narendra Modi will hold formal talks with President Vladimir Putin in Russia on Tuesday as India’s top minister seeks to unite family members and consider Moscow’s stance against China.
Putin welcomed Modi to his suburban residence Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow on Monday, where the two had an informal chat over tea and a walk in the mud. Additional formal talks are expected to take place on Tuesday.
Modi, in a post on social media platform will decide”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Modi for the back-and-forth, calling it a “big disappointment”.
“Seeing the leader of the world’s largest democracy embrace the world’s bloodiest criminal in Moscow is a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts,” Zelensky wrote on X. At least 38 people, including four children, were killed and 190 others injured in civilian and infrastructure attacks elsewhere, he said on Tuesday morning.
This is Modi’s first visit after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia wants to unite international locations like India behind Putin’s goal of a Moscow-led “global majority” to challenge US hegemony.
Meanwhile, India has been reluctant to take sides in the war to protect its decades-long relationship with Russia, its biggest arm supplier and – since the war began – a vital source of cheap oil. ,
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western countries were “jealous.” , , And with good reason” that Modi had chosen Russia for his first bilateral visit after India’s election in which Modi got a third five-year term on the last day.
India’s relations with Russia have become particularly notable in Delhi as Western sanctions imposed to isolate Russia have brought Moscow closer to China. Beijing has provided Moscow with an economic lifeline, boosting bilateral trade to record levels and becoming a key supplier of Western-made parts to Russia with potential battlefield uses.
“India wants to give Russia room to maneuver,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “They may not have the ability to pull Russia away from China, but they want to give it as many opportunities as possible to prevent it from putting all its eggs in the Chinese basket.”
Officials said India may have demands on the disputed Himalayan border with China and considers Russia’s neutrality essential for national security. “China is the primary challenge,” said Pankaj Saran, former Indian ambassador to Russia. “We really can’t afford to do anything that turns a friend into an enemy.”
Trade between India and Russia has grown to more than $65 billion since Moscow’s full-scale invasion, largely due to a healthy increase in purchases of concessional oil. According to knowledge supplier Vortexa, Russian crude accounted for 43 percent of India’s oil imports in June, making it the second-largest buyer, the closest to China.
This has resulted in a well-built trade imbalance. Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told reporters ahead of Modi’s visit that New Delhi wanted to increase agricultural and pharmaceutical exports to Russia.
Sanctions have also made it difficult for Moscow to repatriate oil earnings due to the rupee’s low convertibility. According to financiers involved in the industry, the US action has led banks to increasingly cut back on Russian counterparties, limiting their access to positive currencies and prompting investors to conduct transactions in rubles and even That have been forced to exchange for goods.
The US and EU have also stepped up efforts to target fleet transportation of Russian oil, leaving consumers like India facing potential technical sanctions.
“Global banks will be hesitant to touch any transaction that could expose them to enforcement action by the US,” said Benjamin Hilgenstock at the Kyiv College of Economics Institute. “An extended tanker designation campaign could pose a problem for Indian buyers.”
He said India and Russia are trying to promote domestic payment systems for businesses, but it is difficult to do so on a large scale due to limited capacity as well as problems in exchanging rubles and rupees for rupees and euros. will be.
Some analysts said Modi’s talk hid the fact that India is about to stake its generation on economic and military cooperation with the West.
The percentage of Russia’s imports from Indian hands fell to a 60-year low between 2019 and 2023, according to data from the Stockholm World Sleep Analysis Institute, as India sought more sophisticated military production from countries including the United States and Israel. .
Kwatra said Modi would also raise concerns about dozens of his voters being unwittingly drafted into the Russian army to fight in Ukraine.
Moscow’s growing reliance on Chinese for its arms trade poses another concern for India, Carnegie Hart’s Gabeuw said, due to concerns that Moscow may not be able to source guns or supply components from China. Cannot promote with untouched hands.
“A significant portion of the relationship is on a very delicate basis,” said Prameet Mitra Chowdhury, head of South Asia at Eurasia Crew Consultancy. “I would argue that this is a managed decline.”
Additional reporting by Christopher Miller in Lviv and Isobel Kosiyev in Kiev
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