Raksha Anirveda
Musings from Russia Experience shows India-Russia defence and economic ties have flourished whenever the west sanctions Russia. Under pressure to critique Russia, India is positioning itself well and fine by taking recourse to its cherished ideal of strategic autonomy
India-Russia defence cooperation faces big challenges now By Vinay Shukla
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resident Vladimir Putin by ordering Russian armed forces to launch special military operations to ‘demilitarise’ and for ‘de-nazification’ of Ukraine after almost a three-month-long process to amass at least 140 thousand highly capable troops, has overnight changed the security calculus not only in Europe, but also de facto by ending the unipolar world order. Ignoring the US-led NATO alliance’s warnings of ‘crippling’, ‘out of hell’ sanctions, thousands of combat ready troops—many of whom have seen action in Syria—entered Ukraine from three directions. This was after receiving Washington’s “No” to Moscow’s demand to stop the eastward expansion of the western alliance or to give written guarantees to not admit former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia (homeland of former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin). This led to imposition of a wide
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range of sanctions against major Russian banks, a number of Kremlin officials and entities including many defence suppliers. Local experts say some of them were already under various US and EU sanctions for the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the West’s various sanctions. According to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the new sanctions are aimed to destroy the Russian economy. But the matter of concern for India is that these sanctions create geopolitical risks for
Russia’s defence cooperation with India. With the Damocles’ sword of US CAATSA sanctions hanging over India over the purchase of the S-400 anti-missile system from Russia, the chances of seeking a waiver from Washington in the current scenario looks very problematic. New Delhi is already under intense pressure to sever cooperation with Moscow, which is not following rules set by the West—Quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi (what is permissible for Jupiter may not be permissible for a bull). So far Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is pursuing a very fine balance on the Russia-NATO standoff over Ukraine. Frankly speaking, India has friendly relations with all the parties involved in the geostrategic chutzpah and is hence retaining its own strategic autonomy. Many analysts here see this as President Putin’s response
