also their military systems are primarily Russian.

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As Russia’s relations with the West and the United States in particular hit a nadir, India’s diplomatic tightrope walking looks even more strained. In any conflict scenario, wherein Delhi has no particular influence to shape the outcomes, its first priority has been to evacuate its citizens. Hence, in the Ukraine crisis, the Indian government has focused on safely bringing back Indian students caught in the conflict. However, India’s abstention at the United Nations carries a deeper geopolitical rationale. India’s strategic partnership with the United States and with many other U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific has grown deeper and broader in recent years, keeping in mind the challenge of managing an assertive China. Nevertheless, India’s defense partnership with Russia continues to be a primary ingredient of India’s military preparedness and there is no even alignment between Delhi and Washington on Russia as a threat perception. While the Indian foreign policy establishment invested in the Quad, and its military carries out sophisticated interoperability exercises and signs foundational agreements with the U.S., defense purchases and co-production with Moscow remain a backbone of India’s military hardware. What makes this geometry of India’s foreign policy more complicated is the growing strategic alliance between China and Russia, with an intention to keep the West in check, at a time of fragile India-China security dynamics.