Putin’s visit to India and its Emerging Strategic Connotation in India-Russia Relations
- Chennai Centre for China Studies
- 32 minutes ago
- 14 min read
By Balaji Chandramohan
Image courtesy: DD News
The recent visit of the Russian President to India as a part of the 23rd Annual Summit, India-Russia relations continue to have predominance in the strategic arena. 1 The Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership – established in 2010 and built on decades of cooperation – has maintained steady momentum through 2024–25 despite shifting global geopolitics bringing both Moscow and New Delhi together. 2 Meanwhile, since the signing of the India-Russia Strategic Partnership in 2000 and its elevation in 2010, bilateral cooperation has expanded across politics, defence, energy, trade, science and technology, and people-to-people ties.
The state visit is a continuation of the 22nd Annual Summit in July 2024, issuing a joint statement titled India-Russia: Enduring and Expanding Partnership and another on strategic economic cooperation through 2030.
India’s strategic collaboration with Russia
The state visit which is more of a political and state visit has more significant impact at the politico –military engagement.
Military engagements in 2025 reflected operational continuity. The INDRA-2025 joint military exercise was held in Rajasthan in October, while naval exercises took place earlier in the Bay of Bengal and Chennai. Indian personnel also participated in Russia’s Zapad-2025 exercise. A delegation visited Moscow in October for the Working Group Meeting on military-technical cooperation.
Connectivity and regional cooperation are gaining prominence in the bilateral agenda. Both sides are working to enhance inter-regional links, especially with the Russian Far East, and scale up connectivity projects such as the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Chennai–Vladivostok Maritime Corridor, and the Northern Sea Route.
The timing of Putin’s visit also reflects a mutual understanding that the global order is in a state of change. For Russia, India remains one of the few large, independent, and rising powers that has not aligned itself with either the Western bloc or the Sino-Russian axis. For India, Russia remains a crucial pillar in maintaining a multipolar Asia and ensuring that New Delhi retains flexibility in balancing Western partnerships with its own national interests.
On the other hand, Washington has historically viewed India–Russia engagement through the lens of its own geopolitical struggles, whether during the Cold War or in the current era of great-power rivalry with China and Russia. But the United States must accept an essential truth: India does not believe in exclusive relationships. New Delhi’s global partnerships are guided by sovereignty, strategic autonomy, and the pursuit of a balanced multipolar order— not by pressure tactics or ideological camps.
Despite the recent bonhomie with Moscow, India will continue to deepen ties with the United States in trade, technology, education, and defense interoperability. But that will not come at the cost of its historic and strategic relationship with Russia as it involves closer ties in terms of strategic sharing of technology.
In fact, Putin’s 2025 visit was the moment India–Russia relations received a fresh infusion of energy. Aside from defense ties, both sides are exploring expansion in the North–South Transport Corridor connecting India and Central Asia also having cooperation in civil nuclear energy, space technology, and new investments in the Russian Far East—a region where India has already pledged significant economic participation. Cultural and educational exchanges, too, are likely to rise as Moscow views India as a long-term partner in the emerging non-West-led economic order.
Further, politically India has agreed to Russia’s recent stance on Ukraine despite pressure. from other western countries. Apart from the above political-strategic cooperation, at an operational level India and Russia vowed to enhance cooperation in the key areas of rocket, missile and naval technologies in the fourth and Fifth Generation Warfare. The BrahMos missile system is an example of this type of cooperation. Joint development of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft and the Multi Transport Aircraft are on the cards as well as the licensed production in India of SU-30 aircraft and T-90 tanks, are other examples of flagship cooperation programmes presently underway in this area.
Also, Indo-Russian cooperation in the fifth generation includes in the fields of rocket, missile and naval technologies and weapon systems purchase and delivery. Further, it is also true that India and Russia have agreed to extend indefinitely their 15-year-old partnership for producing the Brahmos supersonic anti-ship missile and to develop a still more potent hypersonic version of the missile all sealed under the watch of the earlier Indian government.
India military technical co-operation with Russia
India will start attempting a fifth generation fighter aircraft, no matter that the project stalled, and the Multi Transport Aircraft, as well as the licensed production in India of SU-30 aircraft and T-90 tanks, are other examples of flagship co-operation programmes presently underway in this area as per reliable sources.
It is understood that Indo-Russian military co-operation also includes rocket, missile and naval technologies and weapon systems purchase and delivery. Furthermore, it is also true that the two countries have agreed to extend indefinitely their 15-year-old partnership for producing the BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missile and to develop a more potent hypersonic version of the missile. At present, India and Russia have completed the trials of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier, delivery of the Trikant frigate, the sixth stealth frigate that Russia has built for the Indian Navy, as well as licensed production of the Su-30MKI fighter plane and T-90S tanks. The sides also noted progress in the construction of the fifth-generation fighter aircraft and multi-role transport aircraft.
India and Russia will continue to co-operation in space technologies, which includes Russia offering the Glonass (Russia’s equivalent of the US Global PositioningSystem) to India. Further, Russia may increase the Glonass ground control stations. India is the only country to which Russia has agreed to give access to Glonass military-grade signals, which will enable the Indian military to greatly improve the accuracy of its land-, sea-, air- and space-launched weapon systems. These signals will allow missiles, including those fired from the leased Russian Akula-class nuclear submarine Chakra, to strike within half a metre of distant targets. The Indian military’s access to Glonass has been considered important enough to find a mention in half-a-dozen joint statements issued after India-Russia annual summits. Glonass is still in the making and a pact on the civilian side is still to be arrived at, but India’s quest for strategic autonomy in advanced technology would be well served such a pact.3
The Glonass system began in 1976 as an alternative to the US-controlled Global Positioning System. The first Glonass satellite was launched on 12 October 1982. Currently, the system is co-ordinated by 23 satellites. Russia says that Glonass provides full global coverage. In December 2012, India and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on the Glonass programme. Apart from Glonass, India-Russia co-operation on the Arihant submarine is well-established. It is also expected that, as India seeks to acquire more nuclear submarines, it will seek again to co-operate with Russia. India and Russia, both of which wish to assert their positions in the evolving international order, continue to find it mutually rewarding to co-operate in defence and other strategic sectors.4
Defence is one of the most important parts of the strong friendship and strategic partnership between India and Russia. Both countries follow a special 10-year agreement that guides all their military and defence technology cooperation. The military-technical cooperation agreement for 2021–2031 inked on 6 December 2021 in New Delhi, focuses on joint research, development, production, and after-sales support of weapons and military equipment.
The longstanding and wide-ranging military technical cooperation between the two countries has evolved from a buyer-seller framework to one involving joint research, development and production of advanced defense technologies and systems. Russia is also an important source for the supply of defense equipment, engines, spare parts and components. Several defense platforms are also assembled/produced in India such as T-90 tanks and Su-30 MKI aircraft. Both sides have also been exploring co-development and co-production of defense equipment and platforms, including the possibility of export to other countries such as the Brahmos system. 5
The India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military & Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-M&MTC) is co-chaired by India’s Defence Minister and Russia’s Defence Minister. Earlier, the 14th edition of India-Russia joint training exercise INDRA-2025 was held in Bikaner, Rajasthan from 6-15 October, 2025 with the participation of more than 250 servicemen from each side.
Further, on 10-16 September 2025, a contingent of 65 Indian Armed Forces personnel from the Army, Air Force, and Navy, took part in Zapad-2025 military exercise at Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. On 28 Mar-02 Apr 2025, the bilateral Naval Exercise INDRA 2025 between Indian and Russian navies was conducted in two phases - Harbour phase at Chennai and Sea phase in Bay of Bengal. On 10-16 September 2025, a contingent of 65 Indian Armed Forces personnel from the Army, Air Force, and Navy, took part in Zapad-2025 military exercise at Nizhny Novgorod in Russia.
Meanwhile, on 29 October 2025, Indian delegation led by Sanjeev Kumar, Secretary (Defence Production) participated in the 23rd Working Group Meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation and Defence Industry in Moscow.
RELOS and its impact in the India Russia relations
When Russia’s State Duma rose to ratify a logistics agreement which reopened an operational runway linking two armed forces whose defence relationship has shaped Asia’s aviation and military landscape for more than six decades. Signed in Moscow on 18 February 2025 and now cleared by both chambers of the Russian parliament, the Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Support or RELOS agreement gives Indian and Russian military aircraft, warships and troops structured access to each other’s bases, airfields and ports. With President Vladimir Putin signing the pact into Russian federal law, it is now only a formal exchange of ratification instruments away from entering into force which will have impact in force multiplication.
For the air forces of both countries, RELOS represents far more than refuelling rights. It restores predictable interoperability at a moment when India’s aviation footprint is widening across the Indo-Pacific, and Russia is recalibrating its posture across Eurasia and the Arctic. 6 In its core, RELOS establishes procedures for the movement and support of military aircraft in each other’s territory, spanning airspace access, airfield infrastructure, ground handling, maintenance and logistics. In practice, it means Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft can operate from Russian bases stretching from the Pacific to the Arctic, while Russian aircraft gain reciprocal support in India.
For New Delhi, which still relies heavily on Russian-origin platforms including the Su-30MKI, MiG-29 and the S-400 air defence system, the pact also eases the flow of spares, repairs and life-cycle support. For Moscow, it reinforces a familiar message: India remains among Russia’s most durable strategic partners, even amid shifting global alignments.
The aviation dimension is unavoidable given history. Since the 1960s, India’s air force has been defined by Soviet and Russian aircraft, from the MiG-21s that trained generations of pilots, to the MiG-27s and MiG-29s that patrolled its borders, to the Su-30MKI that remains its frontline fighter. More than 200 industrial facilities in India were built with Soviet and Russian assistance, many linked to aviation, missiles and high-technology systems. Licensed production lines, overhaul centres and component factories helped India sustain its fleets domestically.
RELOS does not rewrite this legacy. It simply updates the logistics backbone needed for the relationship to weather another decade of geopolitical turbulence. RELOS Agreement Objectives include providing reciprocal access to each other’s military bases, ports, and airfields for refuelling, repairs, and logistical support. A) Strengthen defence cooperation by enabling smoother logistics during joint exercises and coordinated operations. b) Enhance operational efficiency by reducing deployment time and costs, especially for long-range naval missions. C) Support faster and more coordinated humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) operations during emergencies.
The RELOS Agreement represents a strategic leap in India-Russia defence ties, complementing decades of military collaboration. It formalizes logistics support, allowing reciprocal access to over 40 Russian naval and air bases, including key Arctic and Pacific facilities, which significantly extends India’s operational reach beyond the Indian Ocean. It is understood that RELOS facilitates seamless coordination during joint exercises such as INDRA (tri-service), enabling Indian and Russian forces to deploy over 20 ships, multiple aircraft, and ground units simultaneously.7
RELOS enhances Indian Navy access to Russian ports like Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and Murmansk allows for long-range maritime patrols, Arctic missions, and monitoring of strategic sea lanes covering over 70% of India’s maritime trade. With RELOS, maintenance, repairs, and refuelling of critical platforms like Su-30MKI, T-90 tanks, MiG and Sukhoi fleets, and S-400 air defence systems can be coordinated more efficiently, reducing delays caused by logistics gaps.
On the hand, India has multiple logistics and defence cooperation agreements with different countries to enhance operational reach and interoperability. RELOS with Russia complements these pacts but offers unique strategic advantages.
LEMOA (Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement) : Allows India and the U.S. to use each other’s military bases for refuelling, replenishment, and repairs and it focuses on the Indo-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. Supports joint naval and air exercises, enhancing operational interoperability.
COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement): Enables secure encrypted communications between Indian and U.S. military forces. Supports integration of Indian platforms into advanced U.S. defence networks. Facilitates real-time coordination during joint operations and exercises.
BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement): Grants access to geospatial, satellite, and navigation data for improved targeting and situational awareness between Indian and U.S. Enhances accuracy of precision-guided weapons and missile systems.
Renewal of India’s strategic base in Ayni though Russia
It’s understood that India will increase its strategic engagement with Ayni in Central Asia through the good offices of Moscow.
Over three decades, India has deepened ties with Central Asia across military technology, defence, counterterrorism, and economic cooperation, supported by long-standing cultural links. Since 2010, Central Asian countries have also sought stronger ties with India to diversify their strategic alliances. Granting India access to the Ashgabat Agreement enabled it to enhance Eurasian connectivity and access to resources. Central Asian nations also see the Chabahar port as an opportunity to diversify export markets and counterbalance China’s influence.
On the other hand, the recent White House summit marking the tenth anniversary of the C5+1 initiative brought together leaders from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan amid China’s export curbs on key minerals and technologies. While the US policy on Central Asia has shifted from non-intervention to pragmatic engagement, it lacks strategic clarity, often limiting regional initiatives by like-minded nations including India. For instance, the US revocation of sanction waiver on India’s development of Iran’s Chabahar Port disrupted India’s connectivity projects with Central Asia. Although Washington later restored a six-month waiver, investor confidence has weakened.
Also, since 2010, Central Asian countries have also sought stronger ties with India to diversify their strategic alliances. Granting India access to the Ashgabat Agreement enabled it to enhance Eurasian connectivity and access to resources. Central Asian nations also see the Chabahar port as an opportunity to diversify export markets and counterbalance China’s influence. Though India’s withdrawal from the Ayni airbase may limit its regional outreach, it reinforces its traditional reliance on cultural and civilisational diplomacy. As geopolitical competition intensifies in Central Asia, India will have to prioritise transparent and reliable connectivity strategies while leveraging its diplomatic and intellectual capital to strengthen its role as a trusted regional partner.
Despite the failure of its Afghanistan policy, India will reconsider deploying a squadron of Su-30MKIs at the Farkhor base in Ainee, Tajikistan, to counter increased Chinese military assertiveness in its western borders. From India’s point of view, the region north of Afghanistan will soon prove to be pivotal to the energy security of continental Asian powers in the future.
In 2022, the lease agreement that India had signed with Tajikistan for joint “rehabilitation and development” of the Gissar Air Base, commonly known as the Ayni Air Base, lapsed. India then gradually began withdrawing its assets from what had been its only overseas air base. Operational since 2001, Ayni provided India its sole air link to Central Asia and a platform for wider bilateral cooperation. It was never an overseas base in the manner of American facilities around the world. Media reports often describe it as having been operated by India from 2001-22, but this is far from reality. Nevertheless, three aspects related to India’s presence at Ayni are worth noting.
First, Ayni allowed India to demonstrate its ability to create military infrastructure and build capacity in Central Asian states like Tajikistan. Second, it was a platform from which India projected a broader defence cooperation agenda, especially in military training. Finally, India’s role at Ayni was always shaped by regional geopolitics, primarily Russian oversight, which persists today. Ayni is, therefore, a good example.
India quietly ended its only overseas military presence by relinquishing the strategic Ayni airbase in Tajikistan upon the expiry of the bilateral agreement. Ayni airbase, also known as Gissar Military Aerodrome, was a former Soviet military facility that fell into disrepair after the Soviet Union’s dissolution. After 1991, Russia faced economic difficulties and struggled to pay soldiers’ salaries. Meanwhile, New Delhi, considered a trusted friend of Moscow, was permitted to develop the Ayni airbase.
Moscow supports India’s role in the security framework of Central Asia, particularly in Tajikistan, due to its vulnerable borders with Afghanistan and China as well as the influx of drugs and extremists into the region. Additionally, the 1999 Kargil War heightened New Delhi’s strategic and security interests, making Ayni airbase critical for boosting India’s deterrence and strategic depth against Pakistan.
India began developing the airbase, located 20 km from the Wakhan Corridor and bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and China’s Xinjiang province, in the late 1990s. With an investment of $70 million, the Indian Air Force and Border Roads Organisation upgraded its 3,200-metre runway, air traffic control systems, and fuel depots. At one point, India also deployed Su-30MKI fighter jets and helicopters for strategic deterrence. India began developing the airbase, located 20 km from the Wakhan Corridor and bordering Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and China’s Xinjiang province, in the late 1990s.
India also established a military hospital in Farkhor, Tajikistan, not only to treat members of the Northern Alliance, a coalition of groups that fought against the Taliban, but also to project its soft power in Central Asia’s poorest region. India also used the airbase in 2021 to evacuate Indian citizens and officials from Afghanistan after the Taliban regained control of Kabul.
India’s decision to relinquish the strategic airbase appears to be influenced by Russia and China’s increasing geopolitical pressure on Tajikistan. Additionally, Ayni airbase’s logistical and intelligence support against the Taliban, mainly due to its connection with the Northern Alliance, diminished for India after the Taliban’s return to power. Moreover, relinquishing the airbase supports India’s expanding relationship with the Taliban.
But, Russia isn’t opposed to India’s growing presence in Central Asia. It has consistently supported India’s prominent regional role in countering China and endorsed India’s membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Moscow also maintains its 201st Russian Ground Forces military base in Tajikistan near the Afghan border to counter terrorism and drug smuggling under the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, aimed at enhancing security and military cooperation with Central Asia.
On the other hand, Beijing, through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has cemented its economic relations with Central Asia with mega investments in infrastructure and energy. China has used the SCO to expand its security footprint by setting up a military base in Tajikistan’s Murghob district and conducting regular military exercises with the Central Asian republics at bilateral and trilateral levels, building a solid base for “PaxSinica” across Eurasia. Beijing also trains their armies and supplies military technology assistance.
In recent years, Central Asia has been increasingly attracting global actors seeking dependable sources of critical minerals and energy, primarily to reduce its dependence on China. Since 2022, Russia’s focus on Ukraine and Western sanctions have prompted Central Asian nations to adopt a multi-vector diplomatic approach aimed at regional stability, territorial integrity, and sovereignty, strengthening their ties with the European Union (EU), the US, Türkiye, China, and the Gulf states to develop new connectivity routes, such as the Middle Corridor and the Eastern Route of International North-South Transport Corridor. Even the EU has increased its engagement with the five resource-rich Central Asian nations in regional connectivity, trade, and energy. In 2024, it announced investments of roughly $10.6 billion in the Middle Corridor, followed by another $13.2 billion in 2025 in critical minerals and energy sectors. Türkiye is leveraging the Organisation of Turkic States and Pan-Turkism to build strategic partnerships, signing infrastructure projects to expand its influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The US revocation of sanction waiver on India’s development of Iran’s Chabahar Port disrupted India’s connectivity projects with Central Asia which will be nullified by New Delhi’s closer ties with Moscow. 8
Conclusion
It’s understood that Putin’s state visit to India was a game changer in the geopolitics of greater Eurasia and in the Indo Pacific region which will have ramifications in the international system in the years to come.
Notes
1) Old friends, new realities: India-Russia ties need a fresh anchor ( Times of India, December 6,2025)
2) From Strategic Partnership to Special and Privileged Bond: India-Russia Relations at a Glance ( PIB, December 4,2025)
3) Pillai, A. S., Mahato, S., Goswami, M., Kundu, S., & Panda, B. (2025). Performance analysis of GLONASS from the Indian subcontinent
4) Tracy Cozzens India to host GLONASS ground station for Russia (GPS, World, January 2,2019)
5) Su-57 For China! Once Pitched To PLAAF, Why Beijing Laughed At Russian Su-57 Jet & Walked Away? ( Eurasia Times, December 6,2025)
6) Rahul Bedi, ( Explainer | What Does the Quiet India–Russia Logistics Pact Really Mean? December 14,2025)
7) RELOS Agreement and India-Russia Relations ( Vajiram, December 6,2025)
8) Namita Barthwal Sanctions, The Taliban, and an Iranian Port: The Uncertain Future of India’s Kabul Route ( The Diplomat, November 7,2025)
(Mr. Balaji Chandramohan is a an expert writer. The views expressed here are that of the author and does not reflect the views of C3S.)
