Misgivings have arisen in India that our relations with Russia have cooled off recently. Some protocol problems associated with recent high-level visits have fed this feeling.

Reports about difficulties in our defence relationship, with delay in project completion, cost over-runs and defective equipment, have reinforced this impression.

Russia has enjoyed, traditionally, quasi-immunity from criticism in India at the official level and in the media. It has been generally viewed as a steady, reliable friend of India, standing by our side politically, economically and militarily when needed. Our policy-makers believe that our national interests are well served by close friendship and understanding with Moscow.

To understand the present state of India-Russia relations, we may need to go back a little. After the Soviet break-up, our relations experienced some hiccups. Russia, vulnerable and anxious to secure western political and financial support, saw its future as a country organically linked to Europe through democracy and the market economy. A new mantra of pragmatism was to define henceforth all relationships, including with India. Russia’s European bid failed in the face of western determination to consolidate its strategic advantage over a weakened Russia by extending NATO and the EU into Russia’s near-abroad. Developments in Ukraine and Georgia, coloured revolutions, the politics of oil to break Russia’s hold, not to mention the castigation of President Putin for reversing political and economic reforms, explain his February 2007 Munich speech, Russia’s increasing self-assertion, the overtures to China and re-evaluation of ties with India and the concomitant trilateral Russia-India-China dialogue.

... contd.