Russia and India: The Quiet Axis of the Coming Multipolar Epoch
The strengthening Russia–India partnership reflects a deeper, quieter transition toward a multipolar world order that is unfolding beyond the glare of Western-centric geopolitical narratives.
Is India the Key to Multipolarity?
While Western leaders exhausted themselves in the theatre of the Ukraine conflict, insisting that sanctions and moral condemnations could halt the world’s turning, Russia spent its time building something more enduring: civilizational partnerships that would outlast the noise. India, ancient and unflappable, became the most important of them.
This was not a dramatic reorientation but a gradual resumption of a natural affinity. The Soviet Union had been India’s most reliable partner for decades, not because of ideology, but because both nations understood the fragility of true sovereignty. India never forgot the vetoes cast at the UN when it mattered, nor the way Russian arms and engineering gave it room to maneuver in a world that rarely grants breathing room to rising states. What changed after 2022 was not sentiment but the global landscape itself. As the West plunged headlong into a sanctions crusade, confident that Russia could be isolated, India recognized what few dared to say aloud: the Old World Order had already collapsed, and every state was now choosing its footing in the emerging terrain.
When Europe cut itself off from Russian oil, it believed it was constructing a strategic fortress. In reality, it simply redirected the flow. The tankers that once fed German industry sailed instead toward Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, and with each arrival, a new kind of global economy quietly took shape. Russia needed markets; India needed affordable, predictable energy.........





















Toi Staff
Sabine Sterk
Gideon Levy
Penny S. Tee
Waka Ikeda
Grant Arthur Gochin
Daniel Orenstein
Beth Kuhel