The Indian Prime Minister's visit to Russia is sure to be watched closely. Concerned about the Kremlin's rapprochement with China, Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Moscow on July 8 and 9, his first bilateral visit to Russia since the outbreak of war in Ukraine in February 2022.

Both an ally of Russia and a partner of the West, New Delhi has always refrained from condemning the Russian invasion, while calling for a resolution of the conflict and a return to peace – a skilful balancing act in keeping with India's policy of "multi-alignment." A theory by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, it aims to forge multiple commitments to best preserve Indian interests and take advantage of the contractions in the geopolitical context.

The exercise is perilous. "India does not support the war in Ukraine and, without condemning it, has made no secret of its dissatisfaction with the Kremlin's position," says Alexei Zakharov, an independent expert and former researcher at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. Russian and Indian leaders used to meet at annual summits, but since 2021, the tête-à-tête between Modi and Putin has been postponed twice. The last meeting between the two strongmen was in 2022, when, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan, Modi remarked to his counterpart that "this is not the time for war." Isolated on the international stage, Russia has turned to India's great rival, China, with whom it has steadily strengthened its ties. It's a rapprochement that New Delhi takes a dim view of.

This trip will therefore be an opportunity for India to signal the importance it attaches to its partnership with Russia. Modi has chosen Moscow for the first bilateral visit of his third term, an honor usually reserved for a neighboring country such as Sri Lanka or the Maldives. "Over the past decade, India has deepened its partnership with the West. It now needs to reassure Russia," says Harsh Pant, director of the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank with close ties to India's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The rapprochement between Russia and China is very bad news for India on the security front, and could be detrimental to it," continues the expert. Relations between India and China have been frosty since a deadly confrontation in 2020 between the two armies in the Galwan Valley in the Himalayas, along the disputed border. China is steadily nibbling away at chunks of Indian territory, with thousands of troops permanently stationed along the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two Asian rivals.

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