India - Russia: India Continues to Calibrate its Russia Policy
STORIES, ANALYSES, EXPERT VIEWS
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his speech at the Valdai Club, a Moscow think tank, had high praise for India. ‘We have a special relationship with India that emerged or was built on the foundation of a very close alliance that existed for many decades. We have never had any issues with India. I want to emphasise this, never. All we ever did was support each other. This is what is happening now and I am sure it will continue in the future.’
On Modi, he said, ‘PM Modi is one of the few people in the world today who are(sic) capable of pursuing an independent foreign policy in the interests of his people. Despite any attempts to contain or restrict something, he’s like an ice-breaker, you know, just moving calmly in the direction that the Indian state needs.’
These remarks, writes Shyam Saran (Former Foreign Secretary and senior fellow, Centre for Policy Research) “will be received with enthusiasm within the government and the BJP, but will bring less cheer among India’s partners in the US and Europe.
India’s lukewarm to Putin’s praise: The Indian Express also writes that understandably, India response to this wholesome praise has been “lukewarm." “Despite India’s abstentions at the United Nations on resolutions to do with Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the Indian establishment’s patience with Putin’s actions has been wearing thin. In the phone call between the two foreign ministers, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh rightly told his counterpart Sergei Shoigu that the use of nuclear weapons ‘should not be resorted to by either side’ as these weapons go ‘against the basic tenets of humanity’.”
