Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to India starting December 4 comes at a moment when the global economic and strategic landscape is undergoing profound dislocation. His presence in New Delhi is not just a reaffirmation of a long and steady partnership, but a window into how the India-Russia relationship is being reshaped by the wider churn in global trade, finance and security. The surge in bilateral commerce, the intensifying debate around sanctions, and the rising influence of non-Western coalitions are all part of a larger transformation: the unravelling of a world built on singular hierarchies and the emergence of multiple, overlapping economic networks. Putin's visit therefore offers a timely lens through which to understand how India must position itself amid this fluid environment.
A Complex Transformation
This transition is neither linear nor uniform. It is complex, uneven and often contradictory. But for India, it presents an unusual opportunity-to shape, rather than merely respond to, the evolving rules of globalisation's next chapter. India-Russia trade has surged to unprecedented levels, reaching USD 68.7 billion in FY 2024-25, driven overwhelmingly by discounted energy imports. On paper, it looks like a spectacular success. In reality, the pattern is deeply skewed: over USD 63.8 billion of this figure consists of Russian exports to India, while Indian exports remain below USD 5 billion. The rupee-rouble payment issue remains unresolved, constraining further expansion.
Is this growth sustainable? Partially. As long as energy flows remain economically attractive and sanctions force Russia to pivot eastward, India will remain a key market. But durability requires structural correction - a broadening of India's export basket, two-way investment, and settlement mechanisms that avoid the payment bottlenecks currently clogging the system. Without these, the trade spike risks correcting itself once the geopolitical winds shift or energy arbitrage narrows. The surge is therefore less a realignment than a window. Whether it becomes an enduring pillar of economic strategy depends on how quickly the two sides rebalance their engagements beyond oil.
Is The Multilateral System Relevant?
A second tectonic shift concerns global trade governance itself. As the United States and Europe increasingly deploy tariffs, export controls and financial restrictions as strategic tools, questions arise about the relevance of the multilateral system. The WTO, beset by a paralysed dispute settlement mechanism and outdated rules, is under visible strain. But it is far from obsolete. For the developing world-including India-the WTO still provides the only universal platform that restrains unilateralism and offers a predictable framework for export-led growth. What is underway is not the demise of the WTO but the rise of a hybrid order: formal multilateral rules coexisting with dense webs of bilateral and plurilateral arrangements.
Platforms like BRICS+, regional trade agreements, supply-chain partnerships and local-currency payment systems are becoming laboratories for new norms. For India, the task is twofold: lead conversations to reform the WTO to reflect Global South priorities, while simultaneously using coalitions to hedge against disruption and build leverage in a world that no longer runs on a single operating system.
Are Unilateral Sanctions Still Effective?
President Putin's visit to India has renewed debates on whether unilateral sanctions are losing their bite. Russia offers a complicated but instructive case. Despite the breadth of Western restrictions, Russia has managed to redirect trade flows, stabilise certain macroeconomic indicators, and strengthen linkages with Asian partners. Sanctions have inflicted costs, but not the systemic collapse many predicted.
This reveals two truths. First, sanctions remain potent when they enjoy wide international participation-something increasingly rare. Second, countries in the Global South, including India, view unilateral sanctions imposed outside the UN framework with scepticism. They see them not as instruments of justice but as tools of geopolitical pressure, often insensitive to the developmental interests of third countries. Hence, what is emerging is not a sanctions-free world, but one where alternative legitimacy systems-South-South finance, local-currency arrangements, BRICS coordination - blunt the force of unilateral coercion. The West, too, will eventually have to adapt to this diffusion of economic power.
The Two Pillars Of India-Russia Partnership
India's relationship with Russia continues to rest on two pillars: energy security and defence cooperation. The defence component, though declining in proportional terms, remains significant: Russia still accounts for roughly one-third of India's defence imports. Joint programs such as BrahMos embody the shift from a buyer-seller dynamic to a co-development model, while the performance of the S-400 systems has reinforced India's operational confidence. At the same time, India is diversifying aggressively-toward the US, France, Israel, and domestic industry under "Make in India". The objective is not to cut Russia out, but to prevent overdependence on any single source. Strategic autonomy in an era of fragmented globalisation will come not from decoupling, but from layered partnerships, redundancy in supply chains, and the strengthening of indigenous capability.
Talk of an alternative global economic bloc - one insulated from Western regulation - has gained momentum with Russia's eastward pivot and the Global South's push for resilient supply chains. But economic realities are more nuanced. New structures are indeed taking shape: local-currency settlements, BRICS financial instruments, diversified logistics corridors, and expanded South-South trade. Yet global value chains remain deeply intertwined with Western capital markets, technology ecosystems and regulatory standards. Building a completely insulated parallel system is neither feasible nor efficient for most economies, including India.
Best Of All Worlds
What is emerging instead is a multi-layered global economy - not a bifurcated East vs West model, but a world of overlapping networks, where countries maintain diversified linkages to maximise resilience and bargaining power. For India, this is not a threat but an opportunity. Its integration with both the West and the East gives it rare leverage - provided it invests in alternative frameworks without abandoning existing ones.
The India-Russia relationship is not a relic of the past but a prism through which the world's new economic geometry can be observed. Trade spikes, sanctions resistance, bloc politics, shifting defence dependencies-each is a piece of a larger transformation. The emerging order will not be bipolar. It will be fluid, contested, and multi-nodal. For India, the challenge is to use this moment of flux to shape the rules, diversify its options, strengthen its domestic capabilities, and ensure that strategic autonomy remains anchored in economic resilience.
In a world no longer organised around a single centre of gravity, navigation-rather than alignment-will define success.
(The author is President, Chintan Research Foundation)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
