2007 will be crucial for Indo-Russian ties

The year ahead will be crucial for Indo-Russian ties as Moscow prepares for the change of its political elite with Duma elections due in December 2007 and a change of guard in the Kremlin in early 2008.

Bilateral ties took a beating in the outgoing year as new and disturbing trends emerged in relations that could have long-term negative consequences for New Delhi.

A sense of apprehension in the Kremlin and South Block prompted President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to set up a joint study group this year to give fresh impetus to bilateral trade.

The JSG's first meeting in Moscow in August, however, witnessed its Russian co-chair Mikhail Dmitriyev conceding that Russian businessman preferred to do business with Europe, 'where his children study and where he spends his vacations'.

Fifteen years after the break up of the Soviet Union and after signing several declarations and partnership pacts, New Delhi and Moscow failed this year to translate their political trust into tangible results in economic interaction and trade.

Indian diplomacy has always seen Russia as 'home turf', but it suffered a major blow this summer when a consortium created by ONGC Videsh Limited and Russia's biggest private natural gas producer Itera lost a bid to China for acquiring Udmurtneft oil company from oil major TNK-BP.

Defence ties, the cornerstone of Indo-Russian friendship, too suffered a major dent when Russian firms attacked the BrahMos Aerospace joint venture that makes cruise missiles.

Though India received the first batch of crude for the Mangalore refinery from Sakhalin-1 offshore gas bloc, in which OVL has invested almost $3 billion for a 20 percent stake under a production sharing arrangement, its 'energy dream' in Russia failed to fructify and it was a loser to China in the quest for Russian hydrocarbons.

Experts said it was beocoming increasingly evident that India had failed to see the winds of change sweeping buoyant Russia and adjust its energy policy accordingly.

Bilateral defence ties suffered a blow when anonymous experts attacked BrahMos Aerospace, the Indo-Russian cruise missile joint venture in a government news agency commentary and spoke against such new projects on which India has been pinning hopes to acquire cutting-edge futuristic weapons and platforms.

Even at the summit level, the long-pending issue of business visas for Indians was not resolved as Russia adamantly linked it to the signing of a re-admission treaty similar to the one signed by Moscow with Brussels.

The pragmatism of the Russian leadership is overwhelming and old ideological guidelines are gone. Putin's Russia, awash in petro-dollars, cannot be taken for granted any more, experts said.

On threat perceptions and new challenges to national and international security, Moscow and New Delhi continue to share a common stance that knits a fabric of trust, but there is a void beyond this.

Moscow's growing confrontational posture vis-a-vis the US and the West was another challenge thrown up by 2006 to New Delhi, which is mending fences with Washington in the wake of the civil nuclear deal.

With India almost off the radar screens of the new Russian ruling class, Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov are the only two leaders in Moscow who still regard New Delhi as an important partner. Alienation has grown on both sides.

Except for a handful of academics, the Russian public is indifferent to India, which they see as a poor and backward country. The public in India, on the other hand, sees Russia as a mafia-run xenophobic state.

One of the likely heirs of Putin after presidential polls in 2008, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedyev, said Russia is a 'country of signals'. Going by this, the signals coming from Russia in 2006 were not very heartening for India.