Alexander Hara: Modi Is Playing A Game That Is Impossible To Win

• 17.09.2025, 19:37

How the US and EU might respond to India's rapprochement with Russia.

India sent a small but symbolic military contingent to Russia for the Zapad-2025 exercise. What does this mean in the context of war and how to perceive this gesture? The website Charter97.org talked about it with Ukrainian diplomat and political scientist, director of the Center for Defense Strategies Alexander Hara:

- There is a broad context of attempts to normalize relations with Russia, which was launched by Donald Trump with his summit in Alaska. And there at that West 2025 exercise, there were two United States military personnel there as observers.

And it's a normalization not only of Vladimir Putin, but also of Alexander Lukashenko. American emissaries have come before, and the result was that a certain number of Belarusian dissidents were released. Plus - unblocking for Belavia, which can fly again, and most importantly, access to maintenance and components. Accordingly, this gives Russia an opportunity to get out of a critical situation where their fleet of aircraft is in pre-critical condition.

The second story is that India abstained in voting for three very important UN General Assembly resolutions for Ukraine: in 2014 on territorial integrity, in 2022 on aggression, and in 2023 on principles of peace in Ukraine. Well, plus we remember that Trump threatened everyone who buys on the Russian markets with "hell tariffs", and the only victim was India.

India is in second place after China in terms of oil purchases, and this oil then reaches the European market. Accordingly, Narendra Modi was a bit "upset" by all this and went to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit to show that he was playing his game. Apart from economic cooperation, the Indians have defense cooperation with Russia: they continue to depend on Russian arms, they have a nuclear submarine project, and I think they have already leased one Russian nuclear submarine.

This is a continuation of India's rapprochement with the anti-democratic center, despite the fact that everyone says, "India is the world's largest democracy." But here we can be skeptical about the state of democracy. Plus Modi chose to support the war and, apart from the rhetoric of "this is not the time for war", went no further. Though in fact this is clearly a strategic mistake, given that the United States does not claim an inch of Indian land, while there are two territories between India and China that they are willing to fight over. I am not talking about the growing power of the Chinese economy which threatens India's strategic interests. So, as far as I am concerned, Modi is playing a game that is basically impossible to win.

- Despite Trump's ultimatums, India remains the largest buyer of Russian oil and is actually financing the war. Can New Delhi increase cooperation with Moscow - for example, through supplies of technology, weapons or joint projects?"

- Actually, India is more of a recipient. It is not in a very good position right now after the conflict with Pakistan, when they strategically miscalculated both in their assessment of Pakistan's armed forces and the fact that Chinese missiles proved capable enough to counter Western weaponry. I would put it this way: it's probably not a matter of China's technological capability, but that the Indians were unprepared and actually made mistakes in calculating the tactical characteristics of these missiles and so on.

So India is likely to be the opposite, buying weapons rather than sharing them or developing them. They have no independent technological potential - they do not produce the full range of weapons. There was a project: the Indians lost several tens of millions of dollars investing in the fifth-generation airplane. They were primarily interested in the engine, but after Russia showed its inability to fulfill the tasks (I am not talking about large-scale production of engines and airplanes), they withdrew from the project.

Indians have a commercial mindset: if you can make money, they will do it. And when there are sanctions, there is always an opportunity to make money - the prices for their goods increase, while the prices for raw materials that fall under sanctions, on the contrary, fall. Of course, Indians want to make money on this situation, and their economic benefit outweighs the strategic problems they create for themselves.

Any trade with Russia can be considered financing of the war, given that India does not help Ukraine with arms at all. They pretend to stay away, talk about their readiness to be mediators and so on. But this is the way the world works: states are guided by their selfish interests - this is normal. In India's case, its self-interest should be to be in the camp of the US and Europe and to restrain China from acting rashly on Taiwan and other states. But instead, India wants to earn the "long ruble" and ends up losing quite a lot.

Perhaps they are counting on Washington to turn a blind eye and hope that India will side with them in case of a conflict with China. I think this is somewhat naive. It would be more logical to impose tariffs on India, China, Turkey and some other countries. If we are talking about the European Union, it is Hungary and Slovakia, which are not going to curtail cooperation and, on the contrary, are only increasing their dependence on Russia. But Trump has decided to play differently.

I understand why the U.S. did not apply tariffs to China: they are in bilateral negotiations, Trump wants to balance trade. Of course, if he had imposed tariffs because of Ukraine, those negotiations would have effectively ended. But if you threaten and do nothing, it is worse than doing nothing at all, because the other side sees your weakness and will exploit it.

- What response can the US, EU and NATO give to such moves by India?

- Fundamentally nothing. Because in confronting China, a player like India is extremely important for the United States and key European countries. On the other hand, India depends on technology, on markets. A couple of years ago, there were several delegations from the EU, Britain and individual European Union countries. This is a process within the desire to reduce dependence on China, its resources and markets. Accordingly, the Europeans can say, "We're putting this on pause for now. As long as you are not on the same side with us in terms of pressure on Russia, there can be no serious expansion of cooperation."

Naturally, protective measures are also possible. Now the Europeans are considering a new package of sanctions. First of all, they want to stop buying Russian energy carriers: not only oil, but also liquefied gas. Even France buys Russian gas in large volumes. If such decisions are taken, they will also stop buying Russian oil processed at Indian refineries. Indians will have to consume more themselves, and they have limited capacity.

India's economy is clear: if there is a surplus of a commodity, its price falls. It is unlikely that there will be many countries in the world ready to switch to Russian oil. They will be small nations with small volumes of purchases. India's super-profits will end soon if the Europeans impose restrictions, first of all, on themselves.