Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a two-day Moscow visit during which he has been holding extensive one-on-one meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Amid this, the US is “concerned” with the growing bilateral relationship between India and Russia.
PM Modi’s Russia Visit
Why In News
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a two-day Moscow visit during which he has been holding extensive one-on-one meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Amid this, the US is “concerned” with the growing bilateral relationship between India and Russia.
- Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has welcomed India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow, greeting him as his “dear friend” as the Indian leader made his first trip to the country since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Modi will be meeting Putin around the same time as leaders of the 32 nations in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) gather in Washington DC from July 9-11 to celebrate 75 years of the anti-Russia military alliance.
About Visit
- PM Modi will first interact with the Indian community in Russia, lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Kremlin and thereafter visit the Rosatom pavilion at an exhibition venue in Moscow.
- Indian PM is in Moscow at Putin’s invitation to hold the 22nd India-Russia Annual Summit.
- Upon arrival, Modi was hosted by Putin for a private informal meeting and dinner at his dacha or country home in the suburb of Novo-Ogaryovo – a rare honour reserved by the Russian president for only a few visiting leaders.
- The two leaders met yesterday at the Russian President’s official address where they spoke over crucial global matters.
- The meeting marks the 16th encounter between PM Modi and President Putin in the past decade, with their last face-to-face interaction occurring at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in 2022.
India Russia
- Over the years, as India has diversified its relationships in a multi-polar world, the India-Russia relationship has stagnated in some areas and atrophied in others.
- Defence is the strongest pillar of the strategic partnership by far, with nuclear and space cooperation also occupying an important place. USSR was India’s main supplier of defence equipment during the decades of the Cold War, and even now, between 60 and 70 per cent of India’s defence equipment is estimated to be of Russian and Soviet origin. The defence cooperation has evolved over time from a buyer-seller framework to one involving joint R&D, co-development and joint production.
- Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, India has been buying large amounts of Russian oil at a discount to cushion the inflationary impact of rising crude prices. Before the war, the bilateral trade target was set at $30 billion by 2025. However, bilateral trade reached an all-time high of $65.70 billion in FY 2023-24.
- There is a perception that India is positioning itself as a neutral player that could be a mediator between the two sides.
- India’s top exports to Russia include drugs and pharmaceutical products, telecom instruments, iron and steel, marine products and machinery.
- Its top imports from Russia include crude oil and petroleum products, coal and coke, pearls, precious and semiprecious stones, fertiliser, vegetable oil, gold and silver.
US on Modi’s Russia visit
- Responding to a question on Modi’s Russia visit, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in a full and frank dialogue. And that includes our concerns about their relationship with Russia.”
- “We did just see Modi, like (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor Orban, meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. We thought that was an important step to take,” Miller said, adding that the US “urges” India to “make to clear that any resolution to the conflict in Ukraine needs to be one that respects the UN charter, that respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Ukraine’s sovereignty.”
Why Is US Concerned With Modi’s Russia Visit
- US has established strong relations with India, seeing it as a strong partner in the face of the rise of China, with President Joe Biden inviting Modi for a state visit last year.
- Also, the US has been persistently putting pressure on India to distance itself from Russia ever since Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. However, India has resisted the pressure, citing its longstanding ties with Russia and its economic needs. Despite this, New Delhi has voiced for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing war.
