‘Great power’ India, Russia strike trade, arms deals during Putin visit

NEW DELHI: Russian President Vladimir Putin lauded India as “a great power” in New Delhi on Monday as the traditional allies signed a flurry of trade and arms deals, despite Washington’s increasing courtship of the world’s largest democracy.

Putin travelled to India with Russia’s defence and foreign ministers in a visit that saw the two countries reinforce their ties with a military and technical cooperation pact until 2031 and a pledge to boost annual trade to $30 billion by 2025.

The Russian president is visiting India amid increasingly strained relations between Russia and the United States, also a key Indian ally, which has expressed reservations about the growing military cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi.

“We perceive India as a great power, a friendly nation and a time-tested friend,” Putin said in the Indian capital alongside Modi. A joint statement published after the talks said Russia and India had “reiterated their intention to strengthen defence cooperation, including in the joint development of production of military equipment.”

In addition to the deal for India to produce more than 600,000 AK-203 assault rifles, Russia said it was interested in continuing to provide S-400 air defence missile systems.

India’s Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said the two countries had signed 28 investment pacts, including deals on steel, shipbuilding, coal and energy. He added that a 2018 contract for the S-400 missile systems was currently being implemented.

“Supplies have begun this month, and will continue to happen,” he said, referring to the S-400. The deal is worth over $5 billion and was first signed in 2018, but it threatens to upend the burgeoning relationship between New Delhi and Washington.

The United States has warned of sanctions under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which is aimed at reining in Russia, and the State Department said last week that no decisions had been made on any waivers for India.

Russian oil company Rosneft said it signed a contract with Indian Oil to supply up to 2 million tonnes of oil to India by the end of 2022.  The countries also signed a memorandum of understanding for Russia to send an uninterrupted supply of coal to India to support its steel production, among other deals.

Putin and Modi also discussed the situation in Afghanistan, voicing their commitment to ensure that the country will never become a safe haven for international terrorism.