India and Russia’s ‘Like-Minded’ Partners
India maintains a robust diplomatic, economic and military ties with Moscow and both sides have expanded bilateral trade to record levels in the past two years.
New Delhi has started seeing the world through its own prism and is not affected by te views, likes and dislikes of others, not even the USA or China. India is now fully aware that it is now one of the Poles of this multipolar world.
Even on the Ukraine crisis It has maintained its own views and is helping in peace efforts to resolve the crisis which must involve both Kiev and Moscow. Earlier this year, an Indian delegation participated in the Swiss-hosted summit which as prompted by most of the Western thought process focused solely on Zelenskyy’s skewed ‘peace formula’. However India bluntly refused to sign the final document as the talks did not feature Moscow.
New Delhi and Moscow have “effective and trust-based” relations, especially since 1971 Indo Pakistan War m When both USA and UK had tried to threaten India by sending their flotillas. Recently Russian Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu had a meeting with his Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. The key to this relationship is regular contact between the two countries’ heads of state, Shoigu asserted.
“We highly value our specially privileged strategic partnership with India. Our relations are characterized by mutual respect, taking each other’s interests into account, and are not subject to international trends,” Shoigu said.
“New Delhi is one of Moscow’s main like-minded partners on the global stage, and our friendship has confidently stood the test of time,” the former defense minister added.
The meeting between Shoigu and Doval took place on the sidelines of a BRICS and BRICS+ high-level representatives meeting in St. Petersburg. During the talks, the Russian Security Council secretary noted that the bilateral summit between the Russian and Indian leaders held in Moscow on July 8-9 had outlined new prospects for cooperation between the two nations.
Moscow especially appreciates that Russia was chosen as the destination for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first bilateral foreign visit in his third term, Shoigu noted.
NSA Shri Ajit Doval had a bilateral meeting with His Excellency Mr. Sergei Shoigu, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, on the sidelines of the BRICS NSAs meeting in Saint Petersburg. Both sides reviewed progress in bilateral cooperation.
According to the Indian Embassy in Russia, during the talks the two sides “reviewed progress in bilateral cooperation and discussed important issues of mutual interest.” The PTI news agency on Thursday reported that the security officials had also discussed Modi’s visit to Ukraine in August and his talks with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Several Indian media outlets previously reported, citing sources, that Doval is conveying a Modi-proposed peace plan to the Russian leadership.
Doval’s visit to Russia coincided with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s trip to Germany, where he indicated that direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are inevitable to end the ongoing conflict, and that India is ready to play a role in facilitating this process. He underscored, however, that New Delhi would not necessarily mediate the talks.
