New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Russia starting on Monday for the India-Russia Annual Bilateral Summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin should be seen from a different perspective than earlier such visits for more than one reason.
One, Modi has departed from his earlier practice of making the first bilateral foreign visit after assuming office for a new term to a country in the immediate neighbourhood as part of New Delhi's Neighbourhood First Policy. In 2014, after becoming Prime Minister for the first time, he made his first bilateral foreign visit to Bhutan. Then again, in 2019, after assuming office for the second time, he made his first bilateral foreign visit to the Maldives. This time though, after assuming office for the third time, he has chosen Moscow as the destination of his first bilateral foreign visit.
Secondly, the visit comes after PM Modi gave the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held in Kazakhstan earlier this month a miss. The visit is also happening around the same time that the US is hosting the annual NATO Summit in Washington. This time, Ukraine is the issue of topmost priority at the NATO Summit.
The 22nd India-Russia Annual Bilateral Summit is also amidst Russia boosting ties with China in the face of Western sanctions because of the war in Ukraine. This comes even as India and China are now into the fourth year of a border dispute in eastern Ladakh.
India and Russia, which share a Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership, are holding the Annual Bilateral Summit after a gap of three years. The last time such a summit was held was in 2021 when Putin visited India. And the last time the two leaders met was on the sidelines of the 2022 SCO Summit in Uzbekistan. This is also Modi’s first visit to Russia after the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in 2022.
As to why Modi made Russia the destination of his first bilateral state visit after assuming office for a third term, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra made it clear that it was a question of "scheduling priority".
"The 21st Annual Summit was held way back in 2021," Kwatra said at a pre-departure media briefing here last week. "Thereafter, for the last three years, there hasn't been an Annual Summit, although the two leaders have met on the sidelines and have spoken on the phone. So the bilateral visit this time is just a scheduling priority that we have undertaken. And that's what it is."
Though India did not give any official reason for Modi skipping the Kazakhstan summit of the SCO, of which both Russia and China are members, experts believe that this is because of China's growing influence over the organisation.
"There is a growing dominance of China in the SCO," Swasti Rao, Associate Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses and an expert on issues of Russia and Ukraine, told ETV Bharat. "Pakistan is also now a member of the SCO. So, India must have felt that that SCO does not have much to offer."
Instead of PM Modi, India was represented by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar at the SCO Summit this year. "India joined the SCO with the hope that its footprint will grow in Central Asia," another expert on Russia told ETV Bharat on the condition of anonymity. "But that did not happen. The SCO has become China’s field. So, what is the point (of PM Modi attending the SCO Summit)?"
The expert said that PM Modi will not miss out on the opportunity of taking up the issue of China‘s growing influence in the region during his talks with Putin.
As for the India-Russia Annual Summit being held almost simultaneously with the NATO Summit in Washington, the experts believe that this was just a matter of scheduling and nothing much should be read into it.
"NATO always holds its annual summits in the summer," Rao said. "India is coopting its ties with the West on the one hand and with Russia on the other. We do not treat our relations with other countries as a zero-sum game. Our foreign policy is based only on national interest. Our ties with Russia are purely bilateral."
The expert cited above agreed and said that the India-Russia Bilateral Annual Summit is being held in a way to match the schedules of both Modi and Putin. Ahead of the NATO Summit in Washington, NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg said that this year topmost priority would be given to Ukraine.
"I expect heads of state and government will agree to a substantial package for Ukraine," Stoltenberg said. "NATO will take over the coordination and provision of most international security assistance," with a command led by a three-star general and several hundred personnel working at NATO headquarters in Germany and at logistical nodes in the eastern part of the Alliance, he said.
He added that Allies will agree to a financial pledge for Ukraine and that he also expects more immediate military support to Ukraine; more bilateral security agreements; and work on deepened military interoperability. The Secretary-General said that all of these elements "constitute a bridge to NATO membership and a very strong package for Ukraine at the Summit," and added that "Ukraine is moving closer to NATO".
Rao said that India has always maintained a neutral stand when it came to the Russia-Ukraine war. "India has attended all the four international peace meetings on Ukraine held till now in Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Malta and Switzerland," she said. "We did not sign the communiqué issued after the Switzerland peace talks because it was drawn from two UN General Assembly resolutions."
According to Rao, this year's India-Russia Annual Summit assumes all the more importance because it is being held after a gap of three years. During this time, a lot of issues have been pending which can be solved amicably only when there is interaction at the highest level. Though bilateral trade has grown, there is a huge imbalance in Russia's favour.
"As per figures of the Department of Commerce, in FY 2023-24, bilateral trade has reached an all-time high of $65.70 billion (total bilateral merchandise trade for FY 2023-24: $65.70 billion; India's exports: $4.26 billion; and India's imports: $61.44 billion)," a statement issued by the Embassy reads. "Major items of export from India include pharmaceuticals, organic chemicals, electrical machinery and mechanical appliances, iron and steel, while major items of import from Russia include oil and petroleum products, fertilisers, mineral resources, precious stones and metals, vegetable oils, etc."
In his media briefing, Foreign Secretary Kwatra had said that as far as the question of correcting the trade imbalance is concerned, India is trying to increase exports in all areas, be it agriculture, technology, pharmaceuticals or services.
"We will make all efforts to ensure that exports from India to Russia increase in all these areas. The faster this happens, the sooner the trade imbalance can be rectified," he had said.
Rao pointed out that, prior to the war in Ukraine, Russia was mainly a supplier of defence equipment for India. "It was only after the war broke out that Russia started exporting its oil in large quantities," she said. "India imported a lot of cheap crude oil from Russia and that is how the trade imbalance grew. Russia has done very little to address this trade deficit."
Another issue that will be of priority during the Modi-Putin talks is the delivery of the S-400 Triumf air defence missile system. India had ordered five squadrons of this system and till now, Russia has delivered three squadrons and all three have been deployed by the Indian Air Force. The delivery of the rest two squadrons is getting delayed and reports suggest that these will delivered only in the third quarter of 2026.
Rao said that the revival of the 2+2 mechanism under which the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries meet together will be very much on the agenda of the Modi-Putin talks.
"India and Russia established the 2+2 mechanism in 2021. Russia now has a new defence minister. It is very important this mechanism is revived at the earliest," she said.
According to Rao, the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) will also come up for discussion as connectivity is another issue that is of utmost importance for both India and Russia.
The INSTC is a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and road routes for moving freight. India, Iran, and Russia had in September 2000 signed the INSTC agreement to build a corridor to provide the shortest multi-model transportation route linking the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran and St Petersburg. From St Petersburg, North Europe is within easy reach via Russia.
The estimated capacity of the corridor is 20-30 million tonnes of goods per year. The route primarily involves moving freight from India, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia via ship, rail, and road. The objective of the corridor is to increase trade connectivity between major cities such as Mumbai, Moscow, Tehran, Baku, Bandar Abbas, Astrakhan and Bandar Anzali.
Recently, Russia has sent two trains carrying coal to India through the INSTC for the first time. The consignment would be covering over 7,200km from St Petersburg to Mumbai port via Bandar Abbas port of Iran. When this route becomes fully operational, it will play a crucial role in rectifying the trade imbalance between India and Russia.
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