At a time when New Delhi is conscious of expanding its defence possibilities far beyond those of the Soviet-era assistance, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Vladimir Putin today vowed to consolidate the old defence relationship in the context of transforming geo-strategic relations, particularly in the context of New Delhi’s growing ties with the US.

“Military technical cooperation between India and Russia has traditionally remained a major pillar of the bilateral strategic partnership. The sides note with satisfaction that mutually beneficial interaction in the field of defence has steadily progressed from a buyer-seller format to also include joint research and development, manufacturing and marketing, regular service to service interaction and joint exercises,” the two leaders said in their joint statement this afternoon.

While the end of the Cold War has meant Moscow’s obvious tilt towards a market economy, it has equally recognised that it can no longer deal with New Delhi in the same old mould. Competition from Israel, the US, France and the UK mitigates Moscow’s chances considerably for billions of dollars worth of weapon systems. These critical recognitions have been implicitly embedded in transpirations between both countries over the last four days, with both sides willing to accept transformed relations as one of the ways to push bilateral ties to the next level.

At the same time, both countries have mutually agreed to invest in strengthening relations with commercial military programmes — missiles, aircraft, possible even ships in the future. Defence ministers of both countries concluded a meeting of the inter-governmental commission on military technical cooperation yesterday, after which four significant protocols were signed.

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