After pledging more weapons, drills with Pakistan, Russia soothes India's ruffled feathers

A week after pledging to provide more weapons to Pakistan, Moscow on Wednesday sought to soothe the ruffled feathers in New Delhi, stating that Russia’s defence cooperation with Pakistan was limited, compared to that with India.

Russia also stressed that it had “independent relations” with both India and Pakistan.

Moscow’s envoy to New Delhi, Nikolay Kudashev, however, said that Russia remained committed to honour all its arms deals with India. He specifically reiterated Moscow’s commitment to deliver the S-400 air defence systems to New Delhi amid growing pressure from the United States on India to lessen dependence on Russia for military hardware.

The US has been warning India that its deal to procure missile defence system from Russia could put it at the risk of sanctions under Section 231 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

Kudashev said that neither Russia, nor India had ever recognize unilateral sanctions by any nation, as such measures were often used as illegal tools for unfair and unlawful competitions.

“Russia has limited cooperation with Pakistan as compared to India,” Roman Babushkin, Moscow’s deputy envoy to New Delhi, said.

Kudashev and Babushkin were addressing a news-conference in New Delhi about a week after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had visited both India and Pakistan.

Moscow had apparently sought to subtly convey its unease over India’s growing ties with the United States by clubbing Lavrov’s visit to New Delhi and Islamabad – a rare move by Russia.

Lavrov had held talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi in Islamabad on April 7, just a day after his meeting with India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi. He had announced Russia’s plan to to provide Pakistan with more “special military equipment”. He had also said that the Russia would conduct more military exercises with Pakistan both in the mountains as well as in the Arabian Sea.

Moscow’s envoy and deputy envoy to New Delhi, however, sought to allay India’s concerns over Russia’s Russia’s plan to expand its defence cooperation with Pakistan.

Russia has since long been the largest supplier of military hardware to India and has been maintaining a low-key relationship with Pakistan.

But with the changes in geopolitical landscape and New Delhi’s growing ties with Washington D.C. since the landmark India-US civil nuclear agreement of 2008, Moscow too started responding to Islamabad’s overtures to improve bilateral relations. They started discussing the sale of Russian Mi-35 attack helicopters to Pakistan in 2014 and the delivery of the choppers purportedly began in 2018, although New Delhi had conveyed to Moscow its concerns over the deal.

Russia also inked a defence cooperation agreement with Pakistan in November 2015 and the two nations had the first joint military drill in September-October, 2016 – just weeks after India signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement with the US. The last annual exercise between the Russian Army and the Pakistan Army took place in November 2020.

Babushkin said that the fight against terrorism was the common agenda of Russia, India, Pakistan and all other member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). “So we also help Pakistan in providing anti-terrorism equipment and holding dedicated exercise,” said Russia’s deputy ambassador to India.

Babushkin welcomed the recent agreement between the Indian Army and the Pakistan Army to adhere to the 2003 ceasefire pact and stop firing at each other across the Line of Control (LoC), which resulted in killing of a large number of civilians as well as personnel of the armed forces of the two neighbouring nations. He said that the agreement between India and Pakistan to avoid violation of the ceasefire was a “very important step” for regional stability.