Russia-Ukraine War
Image President Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India at the White House on Thursday. Credit... Pete Marovich for The New York Times
In addressing a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India gingerly sidestepped any mention of Russia, saying, “With the Ukraine conflict, war has returned to Europe.”
“It is causing great pain in the region. Since it involves major powers, the outcomes are severe,” he said, without naming those powers.
But as Mr. Modi hewed to his country’s line of strict neutrality on the war in Ukraine in his four-day state visit to the United States, Russia and its decades-long role as India’s biggest arms supplier was a pertinent backdrop to the pledges of closer defense cooperation between the United States and India.
With President Biden, he announced a deal for coproduction in India of engines for fighter aircraft; a $3 billion purchase of about 30 American Reaper drones by India; and a road map to expand cooperation between the two countries’ defense industries. The two leaders also praised new agreements on intelligence sharing and space-based quantum and other strategic technologies. In helping India expand its defense manufacturing and diversify the sources of its arms, the Biden administration is seeking to ease India away from its long reliance on Russia for its military equipment, born of decades of U.S. policy when it held back on sales to India and instead supplied its chief rival, Pakistan. Russia remains India’s largest supplier of arms, though it accounts for a smaller share than in years past. The defense cooperation with the United States is also attractive to India because it will help the country toward its aim of strengthening domestic manufacturing and reducing dependence on foreign partners, whose supplies come with geopolitical strings. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, India has remained on the sidelines of efforts by the United States and its allies to isolate Russia economically and choke off its ability to fund the war. Mr. Modi has maintained military and economic ties with Russia and has stopped short of denouncing its war in Ukraine. India remains a major buyer of Russian oil. At the same time, India has sought closer ties with the United States. Mr. Biden has called U.S. ties to India the “defining relationship of the 21st century,” and his administration has said it hopes to improve the countries’ economic and security relationship to help counter China’s growing influence. When the United Nations voted in 2022 to condemn the invasion and remove Russia from its Human Rights Council, India abstained both times. In April 2022, Mr. Biden urged Mr. Modi not to increase India’s reliance on Russian oil and gas. Even so, India’s oil imports from Russia have risen drastically. In a little over a year, it went from purchasing hardly any Russian oil to buying about half of what the country exports by sea. Mujib Mashal and Alex Travelli contributed reporting.
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Source: The New York Times
