Our diplomacy is one of the best in the world because we have more friends than any other country. This is the message delivered, half-jokingly, by the Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar during a press conference on August 23rd in Kyiv. It was a way to illustrate the strategy of “multi-alignment” being pursued by his country, but also an elegant way to respond to American pressure to drive a wedge between India and Russia.

But it was also a way to guide/steer interpretations that, at that very moment, were beginning to spread about the significance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to Ukraine: nothing unusual is happening, Jaishankar was essentially saying; it is just one of the many steps on a trip that began long ago and is proceeding smoothly.

It could be that things are as the Indian Foreign Minister suggests. It could also be that the essence of this visit can be summed up in the embrace between Modi and Zelensky in front of the presidential palace in Kyiv, which somehow balances the affectionate and controversial embrace with Putin during the visit to Moscow in July. The answer will become clear in the coming weeks and months.

One of the advantages that geopolitical analysis offers over daily news is that it allows individual events to be placed within broader and longer-term trends and contexts. Regarding how much this visit affects the relationship between Ukraine and India, for now not much more can be said beyond what has been stated in official communications. As for how it fits into the framework of relations between India, Russia, China, and the United States, however, some more in-depth reflections are possible.

Precisely on this complex web of relations, the then-director of the Russian Affairs Council, Andrey Kortunov, published two articles a year ago that are worth recalling today. In the first, Kortunov begins by ironically noting that, for over thirty years Moscow has feared “losing India.” Relations between the two countries, let us remember, had become much more intense from the 1962 war between China and India, and especially during the 1971 war that led to Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, when Moscow supported India at the UN and sent two groups of cruisers and destroyers to the Arabian Sea. Kortunov thus traces the beginning of the debate on the possibility of “losing India” to the time of the USSR’s collapse, when India found itself deprived of its most valuable strategic leverage in the arena of international relations.

Even if “those grim predictions” did not come true over the more than thirty years since then, continues Kortunov, today “it is no longer possible to simply dismiss them as unfounded and untenable.” Relations between Moscow and Delhi are indeed no longer what they once were, and the trend is towards further distancing, even though, for Kortunov, a rupture should be ruled out – at least under the current circumstances. Russia is still India’s primary arms supplier; however, its share has dropped “from 60% to 45%” (though Kortunov does not specify the period; according to SIPRI, Russia’s share fell from 79% of the total in 2010 to 35% in 2020 and, after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, many contracts were canceled). Kortunov does not hesitate to recognize that “in India, there are concerns about the reliability of Russian weapons, the adherence to delivery schedules, post-sale service, and guarantees.”

Trade relations between the two countries have indeed multiplied by two and a half times since the beginning of the conflict, but they immediately stabilized because they only involved oil, carbon, and fertilizers, which Delhi buys at ‘rock-bottom prices.’ It should also be noted that, according to data from the Indian Ministry of Commerce, during the 2022-2023 fiscal year, despite the surge, Russia was only India’s fourth-largest trading partner, accounting for 5.8% of the total, just over half of China’s (10.65%) and the United States’ (10.63%).

Even if India is “too big” for someone to “lose it”, writes Kortunov, Moscow needs to recognize that the geopolitical reality is changing and nothing can be taken for granted anymore: “Russia is shifting increasingly towards the East, reinforcing and developing its ties with China, and India is shifting increasingly towards the West, enhancing various forms of cooperation with the United States”. If this trend continues, concludes Kortunov, “in the medium term the two friendly nations could find themselves in opposing geopolitical, economic, and technological blocs”.

The warning is clearly directed at Moscow (Kortunov is a Russian analyst who works in Russia and advises the Russian government) and is based on a fact that is unspoken and yet so resounding that it echoes in the ears of all the article’s readers without even having to be said: India’s first and most dangerous rival is China. Consequently, the more Russia “strengthens and develops its ties with China” (stated more plainly: the more Russia depends on China), the stronger India’s temptation to seek counterbalances elsewhere.

This first article was published on the website of a strategic studies center in New Delhi. The second one, no less explicit, carries a greater significance as it was published in September 2023 on the website of the RIAC of Moscow, which is the Russian International Affairs Council and was at the time directed by Kortunov himself. There are no doubts on which the primary audience was.

In the opening, the author cautions that his hypotheses would only be valid for the following five to seven years, after which “the current international tendencies could change in very radical ways”. Translated: we have no time to lose.

In this time frame, relations between India and the United States will intensify, Kortunov notes: bilateral trade and U.S. direct investments in India will increase, and the Indo-Pacific partnership will move forward, particularly with the further institutionalization of the Quad (the political-military forum between the United States, India, Japan, and Australia). Additionally, the author dropped en passant a general observation on the greater efficiency of the democratic system even in international relations: “India’s liberal political system creates many additional opportunities for greater bilateral cooperation with the United States at a non-state level, involving political parties, universities, independent think tanks, media, and civil society institutions, something the United States could hardly achieve with a more politically centralized system such as China’s” (where “China” should obviously be interpreted to mean “Russia”).

This does not mean, however, that India is about to fall into the U.S. camp, according to Kortunov. For three fundamental reasons: one is that American arms dealers will not replace Russian ones (and, indeed, even if Kortunov doesn’t mention it, the French ones are far better positioned); another is that New Delhi is decidedly skeptical about the reliability of the protection offered by Washington, especially after the ignominious retreat from Kabul in August 2021; and thirdly, the Americans themselves are becoming increasingly isolationist, which only fuels the distrust of their current or potential partners. In short, India wants to keep its options open and work on as many fronts as possible (which is indeed the “multi-alignment” strategy).

Finally – and here we reach the central issue – “the role of the ‘China factor’ cannot be underestimated”. Whereas half a century ago India “could hope to contain Beijing without external assistance, today that is no longer the case”. And “for obvious reasons, Russia is not in a position to provide such support.” Although the reasons are “obvious,” Kortunov spells them out regardless, just to be sure: “The scope of the ties between Moscow and Beijing, from the number of high-level meetings to the volume of bilateral trade, far exceeds that of ties between Moscow and New Delhi.” Translated: Moscow increasingly depends on Beijing. And because everyone knows that New Delhi’s main rival is Beijing the result of the equation is clear: the more Russia leans towards China, the more the risk of ‘losing India’ becomes real.

Let’s sum it up: Kortunov’s relative freedom to speak is certainly due to the fact that his role lies not in the sphere of propaganda, but in that of analysis. From the early days of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian leaders have experienced first-hand the significant damage that comes from relying on yes-men; the lesson has certainly not been fully learned (because, as harmful as yes-men are, they provide psychological comfort to leaders with eroding confidence), but it is becoming increasingly clear that their political survival – and probably Russia’s own political survival – depends on having the most exact understanding of the factors at play. But Kortunov is also relatively free to express himself also because he gives voice to a substantial part of that same leadership, one that has always viewed China as the most serious and immediate threat to Russia’s political survival.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, Kortunov warns, should not be used by Russia as a springboard to try to build an “anti-Western club,” but as a forum to find compromises between its members. In short, his suggestion is to leverage India to counterbalance China, while keeping the door open to the United States, where a significant portion of the leadership would be happy to leverage not only India but also Russia to counterbalance China (though, for the moment, they cannot say it explicitly.) A Washington-Moscow-New Delhi triangle (to which Tokyo would almost certainly associate itself) for a containment of Beijing certainly has many more supporters in the three capitals than are currently willing to openly express themselves in this regard.

This dream, of course, cannot be realized without resolving the conflict in Ukraine. Even though it is highly unlikely that Narendra Modi and Volodymyr Zelensky have discussed this, it is certain that it was in the background of their meeting on August 23rd. All the direct actors in this confrontation (and others as well: the Europeans and the Japanese, for instance) have undoubtedly taken note.

Manlio Graziano, PhD, teaches Geopolitics and Geopolitics of Religions at Sciences Po Paris, at la Sorbonne, and at the Geneva Institute of Geopolitics. He collaborates with the Corriere della Sera and with the geopolitical journals Limes and Gnosis. He founded and directs the Nicholas Spykman International Center for Geopolitical Analysis. He published several books in the US, with Stanford UP, Columbia UP and Palgrave. His latest book is Disordine mondiale: Perché viviamo in un'epoca di crescente caos.