Russian leader Vladimir Putin's isolation on the global stage in recent years has made him more reliant on China, India's main geopolitical rival, for everything from defense to energy. That's a complication for India, which has ties with Russia stretching all the way back to the Cold War and has relied on Moscow for arms, oil and diplomatic backing.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's trip to New Delhi for the BRICS summit will offer up a starkly changed balance of power from his last visit in 2019 - and an opportunity for a reset in relations between two of Asia's biggest economies. Modi must now navigate an increasingly awkward triangle: rebuilding ties with Xi while keeping Putin close even as Russia moves deeper into China's orbit.
"A Russia that is completely dependent on China is not in India's interest," said Eurasia Group's Pramit Pal Chaudhuri. "One of the reasons why India works hard on its Russia ties is to give Moscow wiggle room. It allows Putin to show his people and the world that Moscow is not totally dependent on China. "
Xi's visit this week caps a tentative thaw between New Delhi and Beijing, driven in part by pressure from Trump's tariffs and targeting of Russian oil buyers, which have revived doubts about Washington's reliability. Relations plunged after deadly border clashes in 2020, when 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese troops were killed.
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India's ties with Russia were forged during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union became New Delhi's main arms supplier and a key diplomatic backer. Much of India's military still relies on Russian-origin equipment and Moscow is an important supplier of Russian energy and - increasingly - critical minerals to India.
But today, defense shows most clearly how Modi is trying to maintain India's room to maneuver. Russia accounted for 40% of Indian arms imports in 2021-25, down from 70% a decade earlier, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as New Delhi bought more from other suppliers and pushed to build more at home.
Many Indian officials see the country's future as more closely tied to the West, even as Trump has made Washington a less reliable partner. Last month, the Indian Army finalized a deal to buy US Javelin anti-tank missiles.
India is also pushing for self-sufficiency. Defense production reached a record 1.78 trillion rupees ($18.8 billion) in the year through March, almost four times the level a decade earlier, while exports hit 384 billion rupees.
China's growing clout has helped draw India closer to Washington in recent years.
Under Modi, the two countries have deepened ties in trade, defense and technology, with bilateral goods and services trade reaching about $240 billion in 2025, up 12% from the previous year. The US is by far India's biggest export market, while American companies are among the country's largest sources of capital and technology. The ties have only deepened in recent years as India seeks to move beyond low-cost manufacturing and into higher-tech domains such as AI, chips and data centers. Apple Inc. continues to shift production to Indian factories to supply smartphones to the US, while Alphabet Inc. 's Google, Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are all scaling up AI investments in the country.
At the same time, India's huge US diaspora remains a major source of remittances back home, while hundreds of thousands of Indian students continue to seek out education in the US. Meanwhile, India's push to diversify defense ties have led it to seek more sophisticated weapons technology from the US.
Modi had built a conspicuous rapport with Trump since his first term at the White House, often referring to him as "my friend. " However, ties have soured in Trump's second term after the US president took credit for ending a brief India-Pakistan armed conflict last year, claims rejected by New Delhi. Trump also slapped 50% tariffs on Indian goods, partly to punish India for buying Russian oil. The US removed the penalty in February after India committed to stop buying Russian energy.
Officials familiar with New Delhi's thinking say the attachment to Moscow fits India's preference for a multipolar world at a time when the US can appear erratic and even predatory. As India's economy grows, they said, Russia's vast reserves of energy and critical minerals also give the relationship a hard economic logic.
"All of these issues create a political headache for Prime Minister Modi," said Lindsey Ford, former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council under former President Joe Biden. "It puts pressure on Prime Minister Modi and his team to show the investment in the US partnership was really worth it. "
India's External Affairs and Defense ministries didn't respond to requests for comment.
Over the past year, India has been cautiously trying to stabilize relations with China - in part driven by Trump's erratic behavior.
In August, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval agreed to keep working toward a political settlement of their 3,488-kilometer disputed border. Direct flights have resumed, and India has eased some curbs on Chinese investment.
"The steady improvement of China-India relations will help stabilize the trilateral relationship" between Beijing, Moscow and Delhi, said Wang Dong, a professor at Peking University. "This will help ease the pressure on Russia to choose between the two sides. "
Still, there are limits to the rapprochement. India and China fought a border war in 1962 and have contested their Himalayan frontier ever since, including through deadly clashes in 2020. China last month condemned India for assigning names to 27 sites in disputed Arunachal Pradesh, while New Delhi warned that any incident along the border would weigh on the broader relationship.
"For India, stabilizing relations with Beijing is about creating space to handle regional dynamics on its own terms," said Dylan Loh, associate professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. "Both sides recognize that a volatile border serves neither of their long-term economic priorities but deep strategic mistrust remains. "New Delhi's suspicions also shape its approach to China inside BRICS. Diplomats closely involved with the grouping recall India scuttling Chinese proposals even when New Delhi might have benefited. India also lobbied against a BRICS currency proposal promoted by China, fearing it would strengthen the grouping's dominant economy. One senior diplomat said India needs to decide whether its role in the group amounts to little more than blocking China. Beijing takes over the BRICS presidency next year and has pledged to deepen political and security cooperation - a push India has historically resisted.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday that BRICS was an important platform for cooperation among emerging markets and the country is "willing to work with all member states" to meets the bloc's objectives.
"BRICS now has multiple divisions," said Eurasia Group's Chaudhuri. "While India and Brazil want the grouping to stay away from taking a pronounced anti-West or anti-US slant, China and Russia will be pulling the grouping in a different direction. "
