Russia-India ties need to go beyond Cold War mentality

On April 5, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov undertook a two-day trip to India, where he met with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. During the two foreign ministers’ joint press conference, they emphasized the “time-tested” and “remarkable resilience” of their bilateral partnership against the backdrop of increasing geopolitical tensions that have affected India-Russia ties in recent times. 

On December 9 last year, Lavrov blamed the West for creating an anti-China coalition with India and compromising the latter’s strategic partnership with Russia. This implies that Russia is dissatisfied with the fact that India-US relations are gaining significant momentum, especially at China’s expense. However, this understanding clearly demonstrates Russia’s insensitivity to China’s continuing assertive behavior toward India. 

From the Cold War to the post-Cold War era, Russia and India have enhanced their strategic partnership especially in the security domain. However, with the current structural shifts in the global distribution of power, both states seem to be entering a complex and challenging environment.

With China’s assertive rise coupled with its interest in expanding in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), India has forged closer relations with the United States and its allies to counter the former’s plans to revise the regional order. However, Russia has expressed dissatisfaction with the warming of relations between India and the US to contain China’s assertion and revisionism. 

“Obviously, the West is trying to restore the unipolar model of world order,” Lavrov said.  “‘Poles’ like Russia and China are unlikely to be subordinate to it.