Washington is seeking to convince New Delhi that deepening ties with Russia and China will create difficulties for US-India relations, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday.
Speaking at the 2024 Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Sullivan said the US sees “enormous opportunity on technology, economics and in the statecraft and geopolitics of the wider Indo-Pacific region” and wants to deepen this relationship.
“Russia is getting closer and closer to China and as the junior partner to China is not necessarily going to be a great reliable friend to India in a future contingency or crisis” he said. “It’s something that we take into account as we have our strategic dialogue with India.”
After tensions between India and China increased dramatically following a clash along their disputed border in 2020, New Delhi has strengthened its partnerships with the US, enraging Beijing.
India’s neutral stance regarding the Ukraine conflict, however, suggests that even though New Delhi may be enhancing its partnership with the US, Russia continues to be an important partner for India and, according to Sullivan, it will not abandon these ties.
“India has a historic relationship with Russia that they’re not going to cut off, but we do believe that we want to continue to have a deep dialogue with India about the specifics and the nature of that relationship,” he said.
Regarding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit to Moscow in July, Sullivan said the US does not see “any tangible evidence” that India is deepening its military and technology relationship with Russia.
Modi’s visit and his embrace with Russian President Vladimir Putin sparked backlash from US officials and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The timing of Modi’s visit, coinciding with a NATO summit in Washington, DC, further complicated “the optics” from the US perspective, according to Bloomberg, citing unnamed US officials.
“We never want to see countries that we care about, our partners and friends of ours show up in Moscow and hug Putin,” Sullivan said.
The strong ties between New Delhi and Moscow date back to the Cold War. Russia is a major supplier of defense equipment to India, and since the escalation of Ukraine crisis, India has significantly increased imports of Russian crude oil. The annual volume of Russian oil exports to India has increased almost 20 times since 2021, amounting to 90 million tons last year and currently covering 40% of India’s demand, according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. This has sparked Western claims that these purchases fund Russia’s war efforts. India has argued that buying Russian oil helps stabilize global crude prices.