Any Indian who has followed Indian history will undoubtedly agree that Soviet Union/Russia had been an all weather ally for India. During the Cold War, India and Russia enjoyed strong diplomatic, military, strategic, and economic relations with each other which culminated in 1971 war for Bangladesh.

India and Russia are both nations that are part of BRICS and have had tremendous growth in growth and military affairs. This is evident from Indian investment in projects such as PAK FA (Su T-50), and Rosneft oil fields in Siberia (of which Indian state firms own 50%). India has also been able to revive Russian MiG-29K program and has bought most of their military hardware from Soviet Union and Russia. India operates Russian aircraft carrier, nuclear submarine, tanks, fighter jets, transport jets, and many other hardware such as missiles.

However, why question the Indo-Russian love story? Has the beautiful Russian woman found another lover and dumped its Indian Romeo?

Yes and no. India and Russia had enjoyed warm relations for various fronts throughout the years. However, India has realized that regardless of how much he loves Russian beauty, he cannot match the role of the sugar daddy China. China is much bigger economically, and can invest much heavily in the Russian economy when it needs a dose of money. India cannot match the same amount of financial offers. This was evident following Russian sanctions that stung the Russian Federation following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Even though India remained tight-lipped following the whole fiasco, it was unable to provide Russia with economic help that was desperately needed.

In 2016, China provided a $6.2 Billion loan to Russia for development of high speed railway line connecting Moscow and Kazan. However, it has brought the Russian-Sino relations to an asymmetrical dependence. While China needed Russia as much as Russia needed China back in the day (Russia provided China with skilled labor, equipment, and Soviet design after the Communist party of China took over the power), the current situation makes Russia much more dependent on China than China is on Russia. In words of Alexander Gabuev, a senior associate at Moscow Carnegie Center, “Russia is moving into this asymmetrical dependence , where it needs China much more than China needs Russia. When it comes down to deals , they [the Chinese] can be pretty harsh negotiators” (Wong and Hodge, 2016).

The result is evident from recent Russian behavior. While before, Russia always took Indian side when it came to Pakistan and refused to supply Islamabad with any hardware, recent financial crunch and India’s dependence on the West for military deals have forced Moscow to provide military hardware to Pakistan. Additionally, Russia has also opened up to Pakistan in terms of military co-operations and conducted its first ever military exercise in Pakistan even after the recent terror attacks in Uri, India.

Where do we go from here?

In order to understand where India and Russia will go on from here, it is important to first assess why the marriage between India and Russia fell apart.

India and Russian marriage was bound to end up in a divorce. Why? Well, India and Russia had little in common. They didn’t share a language, nor did they share culture. There were very few Indians in Russia as compared to a vibrant India diaspora in UK and USA. The result was that Indian community in US and UK adopted western culture, and slowly brought it back in India during visits. Additionally, Indians contribute to their economy and have strong decisions in policy-making. After all, if a growing number of your demographic is Indian, then how can you just alienate that community? Indian cinema was affected by Hollywood, and we can see the result clearly now.

Russia never had that exposure to Indian diaspora. Racism in Russia and Eastern Europe is still more widespread than US and UK (Although, US and UK are also racist towards people of colour).

Beyond the cultural sector, Indian military sector also started to look towards the west due to various reasons. One of those reasons could be the poor quality of Russian hardware supplied to India.

Trouble with its Fulcrums

India has had trouble with their Russian made MiG 29K naval fighter jets. These problems stem from defective engines, fly-by-wire systems, and airframes which are prone to cracking. According to Arun Prakash, who has served as Chief of Naval Staff and evaluated MiG 29K aircraft in 1999 before its purchase in Russia, over 62% of MiG 29Ks have been withdrawn from service due to design related defects. Additionally, the serviceability of the aircraft was extremely low – ranging from 21% to 47%. He blamed the “poor quality control of the Russian military-industrial complex and dismal product support being rendered by the Russian industry to the Indian Navy for the past 25 years” (Raghuvanshi, 2016). Any company who is conscious of their reputation in this cutthroat market should be very attentive to these issues, however the Russian oligarchs who control the military-industrial complex are unbashed mainly due to 2 main reasons:

India has no other choice for Naval aircraft that can work with their Russian-made aircraft carriers (INS Vikramaditya, formerly known as Admiral Gorshkov) besides MiG 29K or Su-33 They are confident that Indian politicians (especially the Congress party) would never turn against them (Raghuvanshi, 2016)

The current BJP government’s focus towards French Dassault Rafale over MiG 35 is a signal of the changing tides between Indo-Russian marriage. I will discuss the full impact of this deal later on.

The Sun sets in the Indian Ocean

India has also had its share of troubles with Admiral Gorshkov, better known as INS Vikramaditya today. Its main issue stemmed from the delays and cost overruns. Gorshkov had been too expensive for the Russian Navy to operate post Cold War budget. The intial deal was that the ship would be free, however, India would pay $800 Million for its upgrades, and $1 Billion for weapon systems and aircrafts (which were MiG 29K/KUB, and Ka-31 Helicopters). The project involved stripping Gorshkov’s missile launcher tubes and weaponry to create a “Short take-off but arrested recovery” (STOBAR) configuration, transforming Gorshkov from a hybrid carrier-cruiser to a pure carrier INS Vikramaditya.

Due to ongoing cost overruns due to bureaucracy and corruption, Indian eventually paid $1.2 Billion dollars for the upgrades – more than double the original agreed price. Additionally, the delays pushed the delivery of INS Vikramaditya to 2013 from the originally planned 2008. The debacle didn’t end here yet. Russia threatened to scrap the deal unless India paid them $2 Billion dollars, instead of the agreed $1.2 Billion, citing market-price and cost-overruns on the ship. India effectively got a second hand ship, with a limited life-span for 60% more price than a new one. These are not my words, these are words directly from Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

While Russia jacked up the cost to $2.9 Billion for the ship, India and Russia finally settled for $2.35 Billion. If you think the fiasco ends here then you are wrong. Due to “underestimation” of the amount of cabling needed, Russians demanded extra payment and the delivery was delayed. India finally agreed to pay an undisclosed extra amount of money.

Flanked by Russia, again

India takes pride in its Su-30MKI Air Superiority fighter jet, and rightly so. Su-30MKI is one of the most maneuverable and advances 4++ generation fighter which is capable of carrying the hypersonic (yup, you heard it right….Hypersonic) cruise missile BrahMos which is capable of carrying nukes.

However, what not a lot of Indians will tell you is that Su-30MKI also boasts terrible engine failure. India has raised this issue with NPO Saturn (the Russian engine manufacturer) and according to Indian sources, NPO Saturn has provided with 9 engine modifications to solve the issues (Newdick, 2015). But a bigger cause of concern shouldn’t be the engine problems for IAF.

A much bigger problem for the Indians is that the serviceability of Su-30MKI is really poor. It has 56% availability rate which means that only half of Su-30MKI are actually available for combat (Newdick, 2015). Considering that India operates 272 Su-30MKIs in its force, only 152 are available. This means that IAF squadrons are even less than what it appears on paper.

Additional woes

Besides all the above mentioned issues, Russia also has the habit of increasing the prices of their products when India most needs it. This was evident when the price of the ammunition of the T-90 tanks (which the Indian Army operates in mass quantity) was increased to 300% by the Russians.

Since India almost completely depends on Russia for ammunition, Russia can dictate the prices. Additionally, Russia has not fulfilled its commitment to set up ammunition factories with Ordnance Factories, especially for making ammunition for T-90 tanks and Smerch multi-barrel rocket launchers.

“Look West” policy

Recently, India has realized that “Look East” policy won’t work completely. The Indian military establishment has realized that relying 100% on their “all weather” partner Russia won’t suit them due to various hurdles that Russia has posed previously. This realization culminated in MMRCA.

During the MMRCA, Russia had offered India its MiG 35, a really strong 4++ gen fighter with 3D thrust vectoring, for a cheap price. It is interesting to note that since India already operates MiG 29K and has its maintenance and upgrade facilities, the cost of infrastructure for the MiG 35 would have been extremely low. Additionally, Russia had offered to transfer the plane’s technology including the new Zhuk AESA radar. However, knowing how Russia had not honored its past commitments and poor product support, especially with MiG 29K, India rejected the MiG 35 and chose Dassault Rafale.

India’s recent Dassault Rafale contract signals the end of Indian Air Force’s dependence of Russia. India has also viewed at Lockheed Martin’s F-16 and SAAB’s JAS-39 for additional squadrons of Medium multirole-combat aircraft. The only current deals with Russia for IAF are:

The FGFA 5th gen fighter deal which has not been looked forward to by the Indian Air Force officials and has met many hurdles and roadblocks. In addition to various delays and cost overruns, India has also questioned FGFA’s stealth, engines, maintenance, weapon carriage system, safety, and reliability. Due to delays, India was also forced to forgo 50:50 development despite paying equal for the entire fiasco. The Su-30MKI upgrades which will allow 40 Su-30MKIs to carry BrahMos cruise missile and Narbhay cruise missile. Expected to be completed by 2020.

India is also likely to work closely with a western company for its HAL Tejas Mk2 and AMCA programme.

In terms of other weapon systems, Russia still hold an upper hand since India has signed new deals for S-400 Surface to Air Missile systems, production of Kamov utility helicopters under “Make in India” initiative, and joint ship- building initiatives in Andhra Pradesh. However, India has increasingly gotten closer to US for its defence needs which is apparent from India being classified as a “major defence partner of the United States” (Nanda, 2016). US has quietly surpassed Russia as India’s biggest arms supplier.

From US, India has purchased C130-J Super Hercules Transport planes, C-17 Globemasters, and the Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. Additionally, India as also purchased CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, and M777 howitzers from United States. India has also recently purchased anti-tank missiles from Israel.

Sleeping with the enemy

In light of growing Indo-US ties and India’s growing reliance on the west for weapon systems, Russia has been re-orienting itself and opening up to former Cold War foes. Pakistan, which had created Taliban and played an instrumental part in dissolution of the Soviet Union, has thawed its relations with Russia slowly over time. Russia has conducted joint military exercises in Pakistan for the first time and has agreed to sell Mi-35 helicopters to Pakistan. It also provided RD-33 engines for Pakistani JF-17 and is looking to collaborate with Pakistan in jointly developing and repairing the engines.

Russia also remained mum during BRICS summit on Pakistani sponsored terrorism in India when the issue was raised by Narendra Modi. All these signal to a new paradigm shift within South Asia.

For Pakistan, Russia is a natural ally. They share similar ideology of rejecting democracy, instead preferring a strong leader, and growing Chinese influence within Russia financial sector means it is easier for Russia to ally with a Chinese ally rather than its adversary.

Looking forward

Looking forward, India has to realize that the Soviet girlfriend died long ago. Her sister Russia, despite similar appearance, isn’t the same woman. It is finally time to get over its past relationship with Soviet Union and look forward to new partnerships with the West, people who share similar interests and ideologies. In order for India to gain the love of the new Russian lady, he will have to significantly impress her with financial investments – strong enough to bail her out of her debt and troubles. It also means that India has to reorient Russian ideology, which isn’t possible as long as Putin is alive.

The lack of cultural connection, and ideology makes it really hard for India to sleep in the same bed as Russia and sooner than later, it will automatically find itself a new bride in United States.

Sources:

Newdick, T. (2015, March 26). India’s new fighters have serious engine problems: The Su-30MKIs constantly break down. War is Boring.

Raghuvanshi, V. (2016, August 10). Report: India’s Russian-made MiG-29K fighters face problems. Defense News.

Raghuvanshi, V. (2015, May 31). Indian Army struggles with ammo shortages. Defense News.

Defencenow. Global tender for India’s T-90 Tank ammunition. Defence Now. Retrieved October 17, 2016, from http://www.defencenow.com/news/882/global-tender-for-indias-t-90-tank-ammunition.html

Wong, C. H., & Hodge, N. (2016, June 23). Troubled Russia tries to exploit links to China. The Wall Street Journal