Why US tariff deal cannot sever India-Russia defence ties: ‘structural reality’

The United States’ latest trade deal with India may be linked to a freeze on discounted Russian oil purchases, but analysts say it is unlikely to upset New Delhi’s decades-old defence ties with Moscow. Announcing the agreement last week, US President Donald Trump said tariffs on India imports would be cut from 18 to 50 per cent, tying the reduction to India halting its intake of Russian crude. “India has committed to stop directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil,” Trump said in an executive order dated Friday, adding that Delhi had agreed to buy US energy products. The order noted that tariff relief was conditional on ending Russian oil imports and warned that Washington could reimpose a 25 per cent levy if such purchases resumed. While Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi confirmed the tariff deal in a social media post, his government has made no formal announcement on ending Russian oil purchases and the issue did not appear in any joint statement. The Kremlin also said it was unaware of any such move. “So far, we have not heard any statements from Delhi on this issue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last Tuesday, adding that Moscow was studying Trump’s remarks carefully. Rahul Wankhede, a research analyst at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in Delhi, said the tariff agreement was “unlikely” to rupture India’s long-established strategic and industrial defence partnership with Russia. “Defence cooperation is traditionally insulated from political frictions in other domains, because it is anchored in long-term force planning, platform life-cycles and industrial ecosystems rather than short-term diplomatic signalling,” Wankhede said. Russia is India’s largest defence partner, with decades of military-technical cooperation spanning aircraft, missile systems, naval platforms and joint projects such as the BrahMos cruise missile. India’s armed forces remain dependent on Russian-origin equipment for spares, upgrades and life-cycle support – a “structural reality” that ensures continuity even amid shifting geopolitics, according to Wankhede. Early last year, India signed a US$248 million deal with Russia to upgrade engines for its T-72 battle tanks. Talks are also continuing for potential additional S-400 air-defence system deliveries following an earlier US$5.5 billion purchase. Under Delhi’s “Make in India” programme, local firms produce Russian-designed equipment such as AK-203 rifles under licence, as well as components for Su-30MKI fighter jets and armoured vehicles. Although the volume of defence purchases has slowed, “existing contracts, sustainment arrangements and joint ventures have continued, and there has been no formal rupture in the defence relationship,” Wankhede said. “At the same time, India’s defence engagement with the United States has also not collapsed despite tariff disputes and trade frictions. This shows the flexibility of defence cooperation as a strategic tool.” Old friends At the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit, held in Delhi in December, Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed their commitment to continued defence and technology collaboration and agreed to pursue new strategic goals. Walter Ladwig, a senior international relations lecturer at King’s College London, said India–Russia defence ties had been in “managed decline” since more than a decade ago, as India looked increasingly to Western partners for advanced capabilities such as electronic warfare and space-based surveillance where Russia was “structurally disadvantaged”. “From Moscow’s perspective, this is largely accepted,” Ladwig told This Week in Asia. “Defence cooperation with India is increasingly treated as a legacy relationship to be managed, not the foundation of a next-generation strategic partnership. Ending oil purchases wouldn’t cause that shift; it would confirm a trajectory already under way.” In November, India finalised a US$1 billion deal for 113 US-made engines to power its Tejas fighter jets, alongside contracts worth US$93 million for Javelin anti-tank missiles and Excalibur artillery rounds. Defence is too important and long-standing an area of India-Russia cooperation to be undermined Aleksei Zakharov, strategic analyst Despite this, Aleksei Zakharov, a fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank in Delhi, said India’s defence ties with Russia would remain robust. “Even if India’s imports of Russian oil further decrease, as they have done for the past two months, this is unlikely to affect bilateral defence cooperation,” he said. “Defence is too important and long-standing an area of India-Russia cooperation to be undermined by fluctuations in the energy sector.” India–Russia trade hit a record US$68.7 billion in the 2024-25 financial year, mostly from imports of Russian crude and petroleum products worth about US$63.8 billion. Top-level trust Ivan Lidarev, a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies, said India “cannot afford to abandon” its defence partnership with Russia. “India needs Russia not only for cutting-edge systems like the S-400 and, in the future, S-500, but also for parts and upgrades for India’s Russian and Soviet equipment, such as India’s fleet of Su-30MKI aircraft,” Lidarev said, adding that joint projects like BrahMos helped strengthen India’s defence industry. The relationship also acted as a counterweight to China and was central to India’s multi-alignment strategy, he said. “Faced with a growing international instability, a rising China and an increasingly unreliable US, India is highly unlikely to abandon this strategy and its relationship with Russia, a relationship at least partly built on defence cooperation,” Lidarev said. Increased purchases of US defence equipment “might dent a bit of Russia’s arms exports to India”, he added. “However, the events of the last several months of tensions with Washington will make India wary of overreliance on the US.” India was expected to continue sourcing “defined sets of military capabilities and industrial requirements” from Russia, said Antoine Levesques, a South and Central Asian defence specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Trust between the two countries was especially concentrated at the leadership level, Levesques said. “Since the first day he took office almost 12 years ago, Prime Minister Modi has dealt with President Putin, as both have with [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping],” he said. This “leadership-heavy” relationship helped align expectations and manage any “anxieties India may have about Russia’s growing proximity to China”, he added.

Why US tariff deal cannot sever India-Russia defence ties: ‘structural reality’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}While the pact demands a halt to Russian oil imports, analysts say New Delhi’s military dependence on Moscow is non-negotiable

While the pact demands a halt to Russian oil imports, analysts say New Delhi’s military dependence on Moscow is non-negotiable