© Aleksandra Demyanchuk/TASS

Summing up the outcome of relations Russia and India have developed over the past year, one cannot ignore controversies around the allegedly canceled annual Russian-Indian summit in New Delhi. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin is not planning to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi before year-end. This statement followed a Bloomberg report, which, referring to a "high-ranking official", said the Indian Prime Minister dropped the summit over "nuclear threats to Ukraine."

However, India’s The Economic Times (ET) cited its sources and denied this information. It claims Bloomberg’s "high-ranking official" could have been fictional and says the meeting will not take place because of procedural issues. It seems that the United States just loathes Moscow and New Delhi’s strategic partnership, selling fictions about Russian-Indian relations, with the media being its mouthpieces.

Moscow considers reports on Narendra Modi's visit to Russia cancellation a misunderstanding, because it has not been planned at all, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said. "There is some misunderstanding here. We know what [Kremlin spokesman] Dmitry Peskov meant when he said that there were no plans for the Indian prime minister’s visit this year," Rudenko told reporters on the sidelines of the Valdai International discussion club.

Notably, the Russian-Indian summits take place alternately under the 2000 Declaration on Strategic Partnership. Over the past two decades, 21 of them have already been held, with the latest one being Vladimir Putin’s trip in December last year. In 2020, the countries agreed to abstain from holding the summit due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year marks the second failure of the Russian-Indian summit mechanism.

This does not mean wrapping up contacts at the highest level. As G20 chairman, India awaits Russia's active engagement and pledges not to make the group’s agenda anti-Russian in 2023, which is worth much, indeed. Following Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi’s meeting at the SCO summit in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand in September this year, pundits and the media suggested they would meet again in 2022, though not in Russia, as prescribed by the Declaration, but on neutral ground during the November G20 meeting in Bali, but Vladimir Putin did not attend.

The parties’ statements and actions are the best indicator their current relations’ stage and development direction. This is what President Putin noted in November this year, for one: "Let’s take a look at India. Very talented people, purposeful, with such a drive for internal development, will, of course, achieve outstanding results. India will achieve outstanding results in its development. There is no doubt that India’s population of almost 1.5 billion people will achieve outstanding results in their development!" The quote, much-hyped in the Indian media, caused a legitimate surge of pride in India, encouraging it to give tit for tat and call Russia its time-tested partner and "a key pillar of New Delhi's foreign policy."

Russian-Indian relations are truly unique. A lot of stuff has happened between Moscow and New Delhi throughout the 75 years of India's independence, including periods of misunderstanding and mutual discontent, but there have never been serious conflicts, much less wars. Now that Russia is back in global politics, the Indians exhibit intimate understanding: they have always perceived Russia as a backbone of the world system, and its internal problems as mere difficulties, annoying but temporary. According to the Indian elite, Russia is vital as regards a multipolar world – as is India from Moscow's point of view. And the outgoing year 2022 has confirmed this postulate.

In times of trouble for Russia, with the collective West attacking it for its special military operation in Ukraine, India has taken a fairly balanced neutral stance and even abstained when voting on a UN resolution to condemn Moscow’s actions. Failing to approve of what is going on, that country prefers to confine suggestions to its own bailiwick, limiting itself to calls for a peaceful solution. This alone deserves appreciation. In addition, Russia’s conflict with Ukraine in no way affects its successful relations with India.

Moreover, Western anti-Russian sanctions forced Moscow to seek alternative routes for energy and commodity imports, making a pivot towards the East, including India. Suffice it to say that since February 24 New Delhi has received a number of proposals that are hard to resist. The most notable one was Russia's willingness to sell oil at steep discounts, and India hastened to embrace it. Before the beginning of its military operation Russia accounted for a mere 2% of Indian oil imports, while November saw that country buy 40% of the Urals crude, which helped Moscow bypass Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United States in importing "black stuff" to India.

However, despite all the efforts by politicians, Russian and Indian businessmen have had quite poor contacts until recently: the trade turnover between Russia and India as “privileged strategic partners” amounted to only $13.5 billion in 2021, with a lion's share accounting for the purchases of Russian weapons and nuclear industry equipment. The war in Ukraine made it start growing noticeably. Prudently estimated, this year it will exceed $18 billion, and the real figure will likely be higher: many Indian companies seeking to avoid secondary sanctions execute operations via third countries. Besides, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi are determined to bring their trade turnover to $30 billion in the near future, and deem this realistic.

However, there are also relational concerns between Moscow and New Delhi. The most disturbing one for the Indians is Russia’s across-the-board rapprochement with China, and this does have objective reasons. From our point of view, this issue can be only solved by means of deeper Russian-Indian relations and broader cooperation within BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), SCO and RIC (Russia, India, China).

To sum up, let’s say New Delhi’s understanding of the long-term and truly strategic consequences of Russia’s pivot to India is not entirely clear. The scope of changes going on in the world is huge and needs time to be comprehended. And decisions the Indian leadership will make in the next few months will apparently determine their ties with Moscow for decades to come.