Russia opposed international sanctions against India after it conducted nuclear tests in May 1998, but President Boris Yeltsin cancelled his visit to India later that year, and a letter from him to then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee linking military cooperation with India signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty had New Delhi up in arms.
It was left to Yeltsin's prime minister Yevgeni Primakov, an India-backer of old to put the relationship back on track. Primakov revived arms contracts and soothed Indian feathers after Yeltsin, under US pressure, went back on his promise to sell cryogenic rocket technology to India. Primakov offered India readymade rockets instead.
India and Russia were also cooperating in Afghanistan, with both nations supporting Ahmed Shah Masoud's Northern Alliance against the Taliban, which had taken over the country.
Photograph: Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov with President K R Narayanan in New Delhi, 1998. From the Rediff Archives
Also see: 'Russia won't violate its obligations'
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