How India’s ties with Russia reflect the West’s past choices – Firstpost

A recent Telegraph article by Tom Sharpe has stirred controversy by branding India an “enemy” over its continued partnership with Russia—a nation blamed for fuelling the Ukraine war through oil exports and defence cooperation. As a long-time observer of India’s strategic calculus, I believe this framing is dangerously simplistic. Rather than vilify India, the West must reckon with how its own historical choices—and geography—shaped India’s ties with Moscow.

A Relationship Forged by Strategy, Not Defiance

India’s ties with Russia are not born of hostility toward the West, but of historical necessity and geographic logic. During the Cold War, India’s non-alignment masked a tilt towards the Soviet Union, which proved decisive during the 1971 war with Pakistan—a US-backed ally. Soviet support then was not merely symbolic; it was strategic, helping India in a conflict that played out more than 4,000 miles from Moscow’s borders.

That partnership matured into robust defence cooperation. The 2009 renewal of a Soviet-era agreement, joint projects like the BrahMos cruise missile, and India’s $5.43 billion S-400 Triumf deal in 2018—pursued despite US CAATSA sanctions—reflect more than nostalgia. They represent a calculated hedge: Russia as a steady supplier and a counterweight to China, India’s northern adversary.

Sharpe’s article fails to engage with this layered history. India’s position was not forged in defiance of the West but shaped by the West’s Cold War choices and India’s need to manage its precarious neighbourhood. Moscow offered what Washington would not: reliable arms without conditionality.

Oil, Ukraine, and West’s Reaction

Russia’s war in Ukraine has sharpened scrutiny of India’s neutrality. By May 2025, India was importing 1.96 million barrels of Russian crude daily—roughly 40–44 per cent of its oil supply, a 40 per cent increase since 2022, according to OPEC. This surge reflects economic pragmatism: Russian oil is cheap, plentiful, and accessible.

But economic logic has met political backlash. US Senator Lindsey Graham recently proposed a 500 per cent tariff on nations trading with Russia, aiming to cut off the lifeblood of what he calls Putin’s war machine—estimated to have cost Ukraine $400 billion, per the Kiel Institute. Sharpe leans into this narrative, interpreting India’s oil purchases and naval cooperation as alignment with Moscow against the West.

Yet this interpretation overlooks a critical point: geography. India is nearly 4,000 miles from the front lines of Europe’s war. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has consistently urged peace in Ukraine, but India’s interests remain regional—focused on border security, energy access, and economic resilience. Unlike Europe, India does not have a belligerent Russia on its doorstep. To Europe, Russia is a bad neighbour. With 80 per cent of Russians living west of the Ural Mountains, Europe faces a persistent neighbourly threat. India, however, is separated by vast distances, with no territorial disputes or shared battlefields with Russia. This geographical divide shapes a pragmatic alignment, not rivalry, challenging the West’s projection of its neighbourly anxieties onto India.

Russia: A Neighbourly Threat to Europe, Not to India

To understand the West’s frustrations, one must also understand its geography. For Europe, Russia is not a distant actor—it is a revisionist power next door. The 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine displaced over 8 million people, as the UN notes. Hybrid attacks like the 2022 Nord Stream sabotage and simmering conflicts in Georgia and Moldova have intensified European insecurity.

A 2023 Chatham House report underscored this tension, pointing to Russia’s proximity and history of destabilisation as central to the EU’s hardened stance. This is Europe’s reality—and it is not India’s.

New Delhi is separated from Moscow by vast geography and divergent histories. It has no territorial disputes with Russia, no competing security pacts, and no shared battlefield. Its relationship with Moscow is not one of rivalry but of steady, if pragmatic, alignment. To conflate Europe’s neighbourly anxieties with India’s strategic autonomy is to miss the point entirely.

Not a Pawn, Not an Enemy

Branding India an enemy because of its Russia ties ignores the role the West itself played in shaping that very relationship. During the Cold War, it was Western hesitation and alignment with Pakistan that pushed India closer to Moscow. In the decades since, India has maintained a careful, multipolar approach—balancing its partnerships with Russia, the US, and other regional actors through institutions like Brics, SCO, and the Quad.

India’s decisions are guided not by loyalty or betrayal, but by national interest. Just as Britain acts to safeguard its own security and energy needs, so does India. Its approach to Russia reflects long-term calculations shaped by history, geography, and economic necessity—not ideological sympathy for Moscow’s adventurism.

The West’s Opportunity: Respect India’s Perspective

The United States has thus far tolerated India’s neutrality because it values India’s role in balancing China in the Indo-Pacific. But as domestic pressure mounts in Washington, London, and Brussels, proposals like Graham’s tariff threaten to upend this fragile balance.

Sharpe’s article, though provocative, should be seen as a warning: the West risks alienating India by failing to understand its perspective. Rather than cast New Delhi as a liability, the West should view it as a potential bridge between democratic alliances and Eurasian realities. With its unique vantage point, India could help moderate tensions, not exacerbate them—if only it is treated as a partner, not a problem.

The author is a strategist in international relations and economic development. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.