The spectre of Donald Trump looms large over the first state visit by Vladimir Putin to India since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine began.<\/p>\n
Putin<\/a> was met on arrival with a warm embrace by Narendra Modi<\/a> and the two leaders are due to discuss deals over oil, arms, working visas and strengthened diplomatic ties between the two countries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Following an opening press conference, two things \u201cstood out\u201d, said the BBC<\/a>: first, a \u201cconspicuous display of mutual respect\u201d; and second, an \u201cabsence of any blockbuster announcement\u201d.<\/p>\n The Week<\/p>\n Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \nSUBSCRIBE & SAVE\n<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n The \u201cneed\u201d for both countries right now is to boost \u201cbilateral trade\u201d, as Russia is \u201creeling\u201d from Western sanctions and India is \u201cfacing 50% tariffs from Washington\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Modi continues to walk a diplomatic \u201ctightrope\u201d between Russia<\/a> and the US, said Foreign Policy<\/a>. Putin\u2019s two-day visit is a stern \u201ctest\u201d of how well India can \u201cbalance ties\u201d with the two countries.<\/p>\n The summit comes at a \u201ccritical juncture\u201d for both Russia and India<\/a>, mostly due to the looming presence of the US, said The Guardian<\/a>. Trump\u2019s re-election has \u201cupended years of closely nurtured US-India relations\u201d, causing disruption with \u201cinflammatory rhetoric\u201d and \u201cpunishing\u201d import tariffs<\/a>. As a result, Delhi<\/a> has been thrown \u201cinto a tailspin\u201d.<\/p>\n Putin<\/a>, too, is not in Trump\u2019s good books. He has rejected the latest US-proposed peace plan for Ukraine<\/a>, and is looking to bolster Russia\u2019s recent battlefield advances that have \u201cstrengthened his hand\u201d with diplomatic gains.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question of oil also looms large.\u201d Modi has \u201cinsisted that India would continue to buy Russian oil\u201d \u2013 Moscow supplies over 35% of India\u2019s crude oil imports, compared to only around 2% before the war in Ukraine began. However, heavy US-imposed sanctions<\/a> have led to a \u201cnotable slowdown\u201d in this supply to appease Trump, not to mention India having \u201cagreed to import more US oil and gas\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIndia is rolling out the red carpet for the Russian president\u201d, undermining global efforts to cast him as an \u201cinternational pariah\u201d, said Bloomberg<\/a>. India, though still wanting to maintain economic ties with the US, is looking to diversify and \u201cgain more access to the Russian market\u201d. Most likely, this week could see an agreement reached over the \u201cshipment of marine products and agricultural goods\u201d, both of which would be in India\u2019s favour.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s interests are clear too. India, with a population of around 1.5 billion and the \u201cfastest growing major economy\u201d in the world, is a \u201chugely attractive market\u201d for Russian goods and resources, said Steve Rosenberg, the BBC<\/a>\u2019s Russia editor.<\/p>\n Putin\u2019s enthusiasm is plentiful. One \u201cpriority\u201d is weapons sales, with reported deals on exporting \u201cstate-of-the-art Russian fighter jets and air defence systems\u201d. Due to the war in Ukraine, Russia has also been hit with a labour shortage, and India presents itself as a \u201cvaluable source of skilled workers\u201d. Most importantly, the main benefit is geopolitical: the Kremlin \u201cenjoys demonstrating that Western efforts to isolate it over the war in Ukraine have failed\u201d.<\/p>\n What next?<\/p>\n Any progression towards a peace deal in Ukraine would \u201cgive India more breathing room\u201d with the US than it had six months ago. Then, Trump\u2019s \u201cire\u201d towards Modi \u201cran high\u201d and he imposed additional 25% tariffs on the country, said The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Putin is expected to offer \u201cRussia\u2019s latest arms\u201d to \u201cbolster the long-standing relationship\u201d between them. Even if this were to fall through, the mere prospect of a summit shows that the relationship is on an \u201cupswing\u201d, according to one expert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The spectre of Donald Trump looms large over the first state visit by Vladimir Putin to India since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-613986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}