2024-07-09 16:16:08
Indian President Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to boost trade between their countries, defying Western pressure on their economies over their invasion of Ukraine.
During Modi’s visit to Moscow on Monday and Tuesday, he and Putin pledged to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030 from the current $65 billion, with India importing more Russian oil and fertilizer and seeking to export more agricultural and industrial products.
Modi, who is seeking to counter Russia’s growing ties with India’s strategic rival China, praised Russia as India’s “all-weather friend” during his visit, and Putin awarded Modi the Order of St Andrew, India’s highest civilian honor.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters that Putin and Modi laid a “good foundation” for deepening economic, political and defense ties between the two countries during their talks, Interfax news agency reported.
The Kremlin, which has sought to rally countries such as India behind Putin’s vision of a “global majority” led by Moscow to challenge U.S. hegemony, hailed the visit as a sign that Ukraine’s Western backers have failed to isolate Russia or rally developing countries to support Kyiv.
Putin held a five-hour meeting with Modi at the Russian presidential residence, where he thanked Modi and praised the Indian prime minister’s efforts to “resolve the Ukrainian crisis first and foremost by peaceful means.”
India has not condemned the invasion or taken sides in the war but has called for an end to hostilities while offering Moscow a critical lifeline from Western sanctions by increasing discounted purchases of Russian oil. New Delhi has a decades-long relationship with Russia, its largest arms supplier.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Modi’s visit, calling it a “huge disappointment.” Zelensky said on X that “seeing the leader of the world’s largest democracy hugging the world’s bloodiest criminal in Moscow is a devastating blow to peace efforts.”
This is Modi’s first visit to Russia since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. On Monday, Russian artillery fire hit a children’s hospital and other targets in Kiev, killing at least 38 people, including four children, and injuring 190 people.
Modi expressed condolences for the victims on Monday and called for resolving the conflict through “dialogue and diplomacy.” “When innocent children die, it is heartbreaking and the pain is horrifying,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western countries were “envious … and with good reason” that Modi had chosen Russia for his first bilateral visit after India’s general election last month, in which he won a third five-year term.
India’s ties with Russia have become particularly important to New Delhi as Western sanctions aimed at isolating Russia have brought Moscow closer to China. Beijing has provided Moscow with an economic lifeline, with bilateral trade at record levels and becoming a key supplier of Western-made parts to Russia that could be used on the battlefield.
“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 means to move Russia away from China, but they want to give Russia as many opportunities as possible to prevent Russia from putting all its eggs in the Chinese basket.”
India, which faces a standoff with China on a disputed border in the Himalayas, considers Russia’s neutrality essential to national security, officials say. “China is the main challenge,” said Pankaj Saran, a former Indian ambassador to Russia. “We really can’t do anything that turns a friend into an adversary.”
Trade between India and Russia has surged since Moscow’s full-scale incursion, driven largely by a surge in discounted oil purchases. Russian crude accounted for 43% of India’s oil imports in June, making it the second-largest buyer after China, according to data provider Vortexa.
That has led to a severe trade imbalance. Economic issues “dominated” the two leaders’ discussions, with Modi telling Putin that “the trade basket needs to be expanded,” Indian Foreign Minister Vinay Mohan Kwatra told reporters. Russia also told India it would ensure the early repatriation of dozens of Indian nationals who were unwittingly drafted into the Russian military to fight in Ukraine, Kwatra said.
Western sanctions make it difficult for Moscow to repatriate dollar revenues from oil sales to India. The U.S. crackdown has forced banks to slash their trading partners with Russia, restricting them from using certain currencies and forcing traders to deal in rubles or even barter, according to financiers involved in the deals.
The United States and the European Union have also stepped up their crackdown on Russia’s oil transport fleet, leading to the possibility of sanctions on buyers such as India in the future.
“Global banks will be reluctant to touch any transaction that could be subject to U.S. enforcement action,” said Benjamin Hilgenstock of the Kyiv School of Economics. “Expanding the tanker designation action could cause problems for Indian buyers.”
He added that India and Russia are trying to promote domestic trade payment systems, but large-scale implementation will be difficult due to limited capacity and challenges in converting rubles and rupees into dollars and euros. According to Interfax, Putin’s economic adviser Maxim Oreshkin claimed that India and Russia already conduct 70% of trade in their national currencies.
Some analysts said Modi’s visit obscured the fact that India is increasingly pinning its future on economic and military cooperation with the West.
Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed that Russia’s share of India’s arms imports fell to its lowest level in nearly 60 years between 2019 and 2023 as New Delhi sought more advanced military technology from countries such as the United States and Israel.
Carnegie Center’s Gabuev said Moscow’s growing dependence on Chinese arms supplies poses another concern for India and its weapons procurement plans, as New Delhi worries that Moscow will not be able to service weapon systems or sell new weapons without Chinese parts supplies.
“ [India-Russia] “The U.S.-China relationship is very fragile,” said Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, head of South Asia at consultancy Eurasia Group. “I think this is a manageable recession.”
Additional reporting by Christopher Miller in Lviv and Isobel Koshiw in Kiev
1724919550
#Narendra #Modi #Vladimir #Putin #boost #trade #Ukraine #war
:quality(85)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/JM4QCLB5MNFA3DYU2ZQ6GMAMTA.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1)