Will Russia-Pakistan joint drill alter Moscow-Delhi ties?

NEW DELHI: This week India-Russia relationship moved from being ‘special’ to regular. As Russian troops landed in Pakistan for a two-week counter-terrorism joint exercise , the ‘degree of separation’ of the original strategic partners only increased, coming as it did in less than a week after the Uri terror strike.
Even though India and Russia are also engaged in counter-terrorism exercises in Vladivostok (for the eighth year running), watching Russian troops land in Pakistan is a new experience in the region.In another couple of weeks, India will host Russian President Vladimir Putin for the annual summit when India and Russia will struggle yet again to put economic ballast into their strategic partnership.
After years of trying to get the private sector to invest, the government has got into the act – OVL has invested in Rosneft; Indian pharmaceutical companies are making in Russia; Indian companies are buying diamonds directly from Russia instead of a third country; and civil nuclear cooperation is on a roll. Russia is central to India’s foreign policy goals and to the balance of power in Asia.
“The challenge for us is to keep the India-Russia relationship stable in a loosening great power universe,” a source said. Russia remains India’s top defence supplier, but Indian officials confirmed they have asked Moscow to make a choice between Pakistan and India. It’s a red line that Moscow has breached and things may never be the same again.
However, Russia’s opening to Pakistan was inevitable. Indian analysts believe it is a subset of the biggest pivot in recent times: Russia’s evolving relationship with China. Many would say it is a reaction to India’s US gambit, but that would be too simplistic, because after the Cold War and until the sanctions, Russia had itself opened up to the US.
The Russian pivot to China is now virtually complete. With lowering oil prices, sharply contracting economy and strained ties with Europe and the US, Russia, India believes, was pushed towards China. Their history has not been great and Russia retains some suspicion about China, but the current terms of engagement are dramatically different, because Russia is now sharing technologies etc with China it would never have dreamed of earlier. That could pose problem for India going forward.
India’s opening to the US, Israel and Europe for weapons was a statement of strategic importance and both Russia and China took lessons from it. China is still under an EU arms embargo and neither the US nor Israel will sell the big toys to Beijing. Hence, Russia and China’s burgeoning defence and tech relationship was natural. Except Russia is no longer the power it was and China is a superpower at the gate, a reality that determines who dominates that relationship.
It was only natural Russia would open up to Pakistan, China’s closest ally at present. Last week Russian and Chinese navies conducted drills in South China Sea , where Russia has taken China’s side. This is a function largely of Russia’s worsening ties with the US . In Afghanistan, Russia believes IS is the real threat, not the Taliban, something Pakistan is at pains to push.