Why didn't Russia openly support India in its conflict with Pakistan?

 

Why didn't Russia openly support India in its conflict with Pakistan?

Whenever the relationship between Russia and India is discussed, people remember the warmth of the Soviet Union.

In 1955, the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev visited India. During this visit, he said that we are very close to you, even if you call us from the top of a mountain, we will be by your side.

Even when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and only Russia survived, trust remained in relations with India. When the Western countries were in a dilemma regarding Kashmir, the Soviet Union said that Kashmir was an integral part of India.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union vetoed resolutions to internationalize the Kashmir issue in the United Nations Security Council several times. India has always said that Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and Russia has been supporting it from the beginning.

Among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, the Soviet Union was the only country to block UN resolutions to intervene in Kashmir in 1957, 1962 and 1971. Russia has so far vetoed resolutions against India in the UN Security Council six times. Most of these vetoes were for Kashmir.

Russia’s balanced response

On May 3, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks. While giving information about the talks, the Russian Foreign Ministry had said, ‘The Russian Foreign Minister has appealed to Delhi and Islamabad to end the conflict through bilateral talks.’

Reposting this comment by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the think tank Brookings Institution, wrote, ‘In less than 12 years, Russia has attacked Ukraine twice and is

asking India to resolve the conflict with Pakistan through talks.’

On Tanvi Madan’s post, an X user wrote, ‘What has happened to Russia? Our Prime Minister went to Ukraine and said that Russia and Ukraine should resolve the conflict through talks, while India should have stood by a tried and tested friend like Russia. This is called Newton’s third law, which means that every action has a reaction.’

In response, Tanvi Madan wrote, “It is not correct to say that India did not support Russia in the war with Ukraine in 2022, so Russia did not support it either. In 2019, after Pulwama, Russia appealed to India for peace and offered to mediate.”

Replying to Tanvi Madan’s comment, Alexei Zakharov, an expert on India-Russia relations at the think tank ORF, wrote, “Russia-India relations have been fluctuating since the 90s. In 2002, Putin also tried to mediate between India and Pakistan, but India rejected him. Apart from changing geopolitics, there is a consensus among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council that they should play their role in reducing tensions.”

Nivedita Kapoor, an assistant professor at the Moscow-based HSE University, agreed with Alexei and wrote, “I also agree with Alexei on the nuclear point. As a nuclear power, Russia has a responsibility to work with other powerful countries to reduce tensions. When two nuclear powers are moving towards war, the appeal for peace is natural.’

Expectations from Russia

Nivedita Kapoor has written, “When China openly supports Pakistan in a conflict, India naturally expects Russia to support India in the same way. But Russia wants to avoid this conflict by once again trying to maintain a balance between India and China and assuring both of them of its partnership. This is why when its two major allies are at odds with each other, Russia usually avoids taking a position openly on one side.”

We asked Dr. Rajan Kumar, Associate Professor at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, how he sees Russia’s position in the Pakistan-India conflict.

Dr. Rajan Kumar says, “So far, Russia used to talk about unilateral support for India on the issue of Pakistan and Kashmir, but this time Russia talked about bilateral talks on the entire issue, about mediation, but there was no unilateral stance in favor of India.”

Dr. Rajan Kumar says, “It is true that this time too, Russia’s inclination was seen towards India, but its statement was very balanced. It was not completely in favor of India. Lavrov’s statement was very balanced.”

Dr. Rajan Kumar believes that there are three reasons for this. He says, “India’s inclination was towards Russia in the Russia-Ukraine war, but India did not fully support Russia as it wanted. The Prime Minister had visited Ukraine and emphasized the need to resolve the Ukraine war through diplomacy. The Prime Minister had also said that the sovereignty of any country should not be violated.”

The second reason is that India has come very close to the United States and there has been a significant increase in defense cooperation. India's defense partnership with Russia has decreased and it has increased with the West.

The third reason is Russia's own compulsion.

Russia has lifted the ban on the Taliban. Russia wants to gain a foothold in Afghanistan through Pakistan. In such a situation, Putin does not want to completely sideline Pakistan.

Russia and Pakistan

President Vladimir Putin's last visit to India was in December 2021, meaning Putin has not been to India since the war with Ukraine began in February 2022. On the other hand, he has visited China twice. During this period, he has also been visiting other countries. Putin did not even attend the G20 summit to be held in New Delhi in September 2023.

In recent years, India's isolation in organizations where Russia has a prominent role (such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization SCO) has increased.

Narendra Modi did not attend the SCO summit in July 2024. India holds the SCO chairmanship in 2023 and is seen as a low-profile chairmanship.

The summit was virtually organized by India. On the other hand, this year India held a high-profile G20 summit under its presidency.

The two countries traded $68 billion in trade last year, but India bought $60 billion of that oil from Russia.

Between 2009 and 2013, 76 percent of India’s arms imports came from Russia, but that fell by 36 percent between 2019 and 2020.

Professor Sanjay Kumar Pandey of the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University says that even in the war between Ukraine and Russia, India was not against Russia, but the support was not one-sided.

Professor Pandey says, “We should not forget that Pakistan has never been an inaccessible country for Russia. In the 1965 war, when Pakistan and India were face to face, Russia played a neutral role as a mediator. The Tashkent Agreement was brokered by the Soviet Union and was not in India’s favor. After this agreement, the Indian army had to retreat.’

‘Of course, Russia was with India in the 1971 war, but now the world has changed a lot. Despite this, I believe that Russia is still with us. India bought the S-400 missile system from Russia despite the opposition of the United States and this time too Russia played an important role in stopping the Pakistani attack.’

Since Pakistan’s relations with Western countries have weakened, there has been talk of increasing closeness with Russia. In 2023, bilateral trade between Russia and Pakistan reached one billion dollars, which was the highest ever. Last year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Ovcharuk also supported Pakistan’s membership in BRICS.