Western countries are using India against Russia: Russian Foreign Ministry

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused Western countries( like USA, France and five eyes countries etc.) of using India against Russia and China and they are undermining the special relationship between India and Russia. In a meeting, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that Western countries are using India as an object for their movement and also said that Western countries are promoting Indo-pacific strategy by involving India in anti-China cases. is. Western countries want the power to be unipolar ie USA and some European countries have power. Western countries do not want the power to shift to Asia.

India offers Russia to form trilateral group with Japan

In August 2020, India's foreign secretary Harsh Shringla made an offer by calling Russia that a new trilateral group (India-Japan-Russia) should be formed in collaboration with Japan, just like we are a RIC trilateral group. And India said that the formation of this group will open the doors of Indo-Pacific for Russia and it can become a part of grand Indo-pacific. India said that it could act as a bridge to Russia to reach the Western countries.

India's only objective in this proposal was that Russia should not depend more on China in its grand strategy. But Russia rejected the proposal in a very polite manner but did not say anything else.

Russia makes a clear stand on India and its proposal

Russia has given a statement after a long time regarding India and Western countries. In December 2020, the Russian Foreign Minister gave a statement and said that India is an object to strengthen its strategy for Western countries. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said “India is currently an object of the western countries’ persistent, aggressive and devious policy as they are trying to engage it in anti-China games by promoting Indo-Pacific strategies, the so-called “Quad”, while at the same time the West is attempting to undermine our close partnership and privileged relations with India,”

Russia's foreign minister also said that the Western country (ie US) is pressuring India not to buy weapons from Russia and is threatening to sanction on India. Here Russia is talking about the $ 5.4 billion S-400 deal that happened with India.

Russia says about China

Russia said that Western countries want to contain China, which means they want to contain Russia too. And the main goal of Russia and China is that there should be no unilateral force in the world. That is, there should not be a single power center in the world.

So Russia and China want that in future, USA should not remain the center of power in the world.

Russia's approach on India

Russia wants good relations with India but the condition is that India should not be too close to western countries. Russia also has a selfish interest in maintaining good relations with India because India is the largest defence market for Russia. Russia fears that if India moves closer to Western countries, it will lose its defense market. Russia fears it may lose its defense market from countries like USA and France. Russia fears it may lose its defense market from countries such as the US and France as their dominance in India is growing. 

Russia's fear increased further when India bought $ 3.4 billion worth of Weapons from USA in 2020. 

Russia's biggest fear is that if India moves closer to Western countries, then in future, the 130 billion dollars that India has to spend to modernize its armies may not go to Western countries. And there is also talk of a third aircraft carrier. India will be a huge defense market in future, Russia is interested in it.