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Tim Collins


India could end the Ukraine war tomorrow. Modi needs to pick a side

As White House spokesman Stephen Miller describes India’s continuing purchase of Russian oil as “unacceptable”, the extent to which India is prepared to ramp back its long-standing close relationship with Russia remains unclear. As pressure mounts from the incentives for a closer US-India relationship and a pragmatic need to move closer to a Western military alignment in the face of a growing Chinese threat, India will have to choose.

India’s longstanding close relationship with Russia harks back to the Soviet era, and particularly the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation. In 1971, at the height of the Bangladesh (then-East Pakistan) conflict, a threatened US intervention on behalf of Pakistan’s then-President Yaya Khan in the form of an aircraft carrier was deterred by a Russian naval presence. Since that time, India has relied on mainly Russian-made military equipment for its forces but with an increasingly wider inventory in recent times including US, French and Israeli equipment. Prime Minister Modi maintains a good personal relationship with Vladimir Putin but is increasingly pressured by a pragmatic need to face up to their nuclear-powered rival in Pakistan and its developing close ties with China.