In a world splintering into rival blocs, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi today is far more than diplomatic theatre. In an era when sanctions, tariffs and coercive alignments are redrawing the global order, the optics and outcomes of this trip will resonate well beyond the India-Russia relationship.

This is Putin’s first trip to India since the Ukraine war began. For Moscow, which has endured unprecedented sanctions and isolation from the West, the visit signals something fundamental: Russia refuses to be trapped in a binary world where its only strategic anchor is China. For India, the message is equally blunt: it will not be pressured into choosing sides in a conflict that it did not create, and it will not sacrifice its own strategic autonomy at the altar of Western expectations.

Breaking Out of the China Corner

Since 2022, Western policy has had an unintended, though entirely predictable, consequence. By weaponising SWIFT, imposing a record number of sanctions and seeking to expel Russia from global markets, the US and Europe have pushed Moscow into Beijing’s strategic embrace. The irony is stark; Stalin once dismissed Mao Tse-tung as a “caveman Marxist”, yet today Russia finds itself leaning heavily on a China whose economic weight far exceeds its own. The partnership has deepened, especially in energy and defence, but it remains asymmetrical. Beijing’s dominance in trade, finance and technology risks reducing Moscow to the status of a ‘junior partner’, a role the Kremlin is acutely aware of and eager to avoid.

Putin’s trip to New Delhi must be read in that context.........

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