India and Russia: What Holds the Relationship Together

Two treaties, a declaration and an upgrade hold the relationship up; an annual summit and two commissions run it; defence, nuclear power and oil fill it. Here is the whole of it from the record, with a map and eight years of trade.

India's relationship with Russia is one of its oldest and broadest, and in the last few years one of its most lopsided in trade. This essay takes the whole of it from the record: the texts it rests on, the machinery that runs it, what it carries, and where the two governments say it is going.

SyllabusGS Paper II: bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India. PSIR Paper II, India and the Global Centres of Power: Russia.

Two large neighbours of the same neighbours. India and Russia share no border. The dashed line is the North-South Transport Corridor, by sea from Mumbai to Chabahar in Iran, by road to the Caspian, across it, and by rail to Moscow.

How did it begin?

With the Soviet Union, and a treaty. The Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation between India and the USSR was concluded on 9 August 1971. When the Soviet Union dissolved, India signed a new Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Russian Federation on 28 January 1993.

Two declarations followed. The Declaration on Strategic Partnership of 3 October 2000 took relations to a new level, and on 21 December 2010 the two countries raised it to a “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership”. Their joint statements still list these four texts, the two treaties and the two declarations, as the foundations of the relationship.

How is it run?

By a summit every year and two commissions under it. The annual summit between India's Prime Minister and Russia's President, held in each country in turn, is the highest institutional mechanism of the partnership. Twenty-two had been held by the one in Moscow on 8 and 9 July 2024; the 23rd met in New Delhi on 4 and 5 December 2025.

Below the summit sits the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission, in two parts. One, for trade, economic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation, is co-chaired by India's External Affairs Minister and Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister. The other, for military and military-technical cooperation, set up in 2000, is co-chaired by the two defence ministers. Since December 2021 the foreign and defence ministers have also met together, in a 2+2 dialogue.

The relationship at a glance. What it rests on, how it is run, what it carries, and what the two governments have agreed to do next.

What does defence cooperation look like now?

Joint work more than purchases. The Embassy of India in Moscow describes it as having “evolved from a purely buyer-seller relationship to joint research, design development and production”. BrahMos, the supersonic cruise missile, is made by a joint venture of India's DRDO and Russia's NPOM; a second joint venture, Indo-Russia Rifles, makes AK-203 rifles in India. An agreement on military-technical cooperation for 2021 to 2031 was signed on 6 December 2021.

What about nuclear power and oil?

Both are large. At Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, two reactors built with Russia have run since 2013 and 2015, giving 2,000 MW; four more, units 3 to 6, are being built with Russian technical cooperation under an inter-governmental agreement. And oil is now most of the trade: the Ministry of External Affairs lists oil and petroleum products first among what India buys from Russia.

What happened to trade?

It grew five-fold in three years, almost entirely on one side. Between 2017-18 and 2021-22 India's trade with Russia ran between $8 billion and $13 billion a year. In 2022-23 it reached $49.4 billion, in 2023-24 $65.70 billion, and in 2024-25 a record $68.7 billion: $4.88 billion of Indian exports against $63.84 billion of imports. India sells medicines, organic chemicals, machinery, and iron and steel; it buys mainly oil, then fertilisers, minerals, precious stones and metals, and vegetable oils.

Eight years of trade. India's exports to Russia (orange) and imports from Russia (blue), by financial year, in US dollars billion, from the Department of Commerce's figures.

What connects the two countries?

A corridor and students. India, Iran and Russia are parties to the inter-governmental agreement on the International North-South Transport Corridor, of which India is a founding member: cargo goes by sea from Mumbai to Chabahar, by road to the Caspian, across it by ship, and on by Russian rail. And 27,222 Indian students were in Russia on 1 January 2025 by the Ministry of External Affairs' count, medicine the largest group, beside an Indian community the embassy puts at about 14,000.

What have they agreed to do next?

A larger and broader trade. At the summit of December 2025 they adopted a programme for strategic areas of economic cooperation until 2030 and a target of $100 billion of trade by 2030, and Russia offered its full support for India's chairship of BRICS in 2026. An answer that uses the relationship well quotes its texts, names its machinery, and gives the trade with its year and its balance.

What holds India and Russia together?