On 08 July 2024 Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting the Russian Federation on a formal state visit for the first time in 5 years according to top 5 latest news headlines and many more. The Ukraine War broke out in early 2022 and that also means Modi has not visited Russia ever since the latter invaded Ukraine. To the uninitiated, especially certain folks in the west, that might seem like Modi showing his indignation towards the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
However, most of these folks are unaware or pretend to be that this was the period when Indo-Russian ties have seen a manifold rise in bilateral trade thanks to record levels of Russian oil purchases by India.
In early 2022 when the war in Ukraine began, India’s share of Russian crude oil suddenly shot up around 10 times as per the latest news world. Since then it has been increasing steadily to account for around 40% of India’s total oil imports. That is the largest amount of oil that India purchases from any single country and it beats even the supplies of oil by all of India’s suppliers in the Middle East combined going by the latest political news.
Source: BrookingsInstitution
The west is wondering if India decided to buy Russian oil by design
The world of western geopolitics is basically driven by the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] which is a military alliance of countries on either side of the north Atlantic Ocean. Since the time of President George W Bush, relations between India and the United States have been gradually improving to the point where many in the US began referring to India as an “ally” going by the 5 latest news headlines and many more from this period.
Interestingly, nobody in the Indian establishment looked at the US as an ally either during the period in question did anyone in the Indian government make any statement in that regard. The term “ally” is loaded with anomalies if looked at from the US perspective. A US ally has no choice but to do what the US wants it to do just as all NATO member countries are doing – they have taken their animosity towards Russia to bizarre levels where it has affected their own economies quite adversely.
Many in the US establishment were under the impression that India also falls in that category and would follow the US diktat of sanctioning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as per the latest news world.
India refused to play the US-led west’s policy of ganging up against Russia and decided to accept the Russian offer of oil at discounted prices. The west was shocked by the sheer volume of Russian oil that India purchased because the revenues earned by Russia helped it significantly to withstand the western sanctions.
Significance of Indian oil purchases for Russia to fund the war
Just one year before the Ukraine War, in FY 2021-22 Indo-Russian bilateral trade was worth $13.2 billion and within a span of two years bilateral trade between India and Russia has surpassed $65 billion.
According to the latest political news, that is a 500% increase in just 2 years! In this period, Russia has become India’s fourth largest trading partner while India has become Russia’s second largest trading partner. More importantly, over 90% of this trade volume is in favour of Russia amounting to $61 billion. That raises questions about whether India purchased such huge quantities of Russian oil just because of the discount or was it to help Russia face western sanctions effectively.
After all, some Middle Eastern countries had also offered discounts to India during this time but India not just continued to buy from Russia but also increased the volume of purchase. It is worth noting that the Russian President came on a hurried state visit to India in December 2021 just a couple of months before he ordered the invasion of Ukraine. Soon after that Putin went on a state visit to China and many observers in the west now believe that both his visits to the two BRICS partner countries was to take them into confidence about his intention to invade Ukraine. In this context, PM Modi’s first state visit in his third term to Russia, when it is obvious that western sanctions have not worked, is possibly to underscore India’s independent foreign policy.
Source: GeopoliticalFutures
AUTHOR: Dev Kumar is an independent geo-political observer, commentator and blogger who tries to look at international issues in relation to India and present a different dimension that has hardly been covered by mainstream experts.
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