Abstract
India’s emerging role as a global leader makes it strategically crucial to balance its relations with key global actors. India has followed a multi-alignment approach in foreign policy, maintaining strategic partnerships with other actors in global politics without undermining its strategic autonomy. In the current geopolitical complexities, which are difficult to define and predict through any single theoretical framework, it holds geo-strategic significance to strengthen its ties with others to diversify its partnerships and collaboration. Both Russia and Europe both are indispensable strategic partners for India. Russia, rooted in a historic partnership is a reliable partner in defence and energy cooperation, whereas Europe is an important partner in trade, technology and connectivity. This article aims to analyse India’s balanced approach towards Russia and Europe, navigating geopolitical complexities while prioritising strategic balancing and securing its national interests in an increasingly multipolar world order.
India’ Realignment Trajectory
As the fastest-growing major economy in the world, expected to reach an estimated 6.9 per cent in 2027, India is not only diversifying its trade and investment, but also its partnerships in defence and technology to become more resilient to external strain on its growth. India’s emerging multi-alignment approach to establishing global partnerships enabled India to maintain healthy relations across diverse partners while avoiding bloc politics. India’s foreign policy, which was rooted in non-alignment diplomacy during the Cold War period, has transformed into multi-alignment in the present era. In the changing geopolitical landscape, with shifting alliances and a fragmenting world, India requires a firm status quo to recalibrate its posture. India’s strained relations with the United States and China’s presence in Indo-Pacific region require India need to balance its relations with these two major powers in global politics. Therefore, Russia and the European Union, two influential actors, still constitute a strategic necessity, and India needs to find its way to reshape its relations with these distinct actors. Though India’s balancing act between Russia and Europe is often read as hesitation, it is better understood as a disciplined exercise within the framework of strategic autonomy. In current turbulent world order, India’s multi-alignment approach, while balancing its relations with Moscow and Brussels, represents a significant move towards navigating geopolitical complexities.
In the changing security landscape, with heightened geopolitical discourse and power politics, preserving national security and prioritising national interests is a critical challenge for India to navigate effectively. Eurasia is a contested region, stretching across landmass from Europe to Asia and, to some extent Africa, and is considered the “heartland” by Halford Mackinder. Geographic location and natural resources have transformed it into a perpetual arena of conflict between Russia and Europe. Ukraine, which is a landlocked country between these two regions, is a living example of geopolitical competition for extending geographical presence to counter or weaken others’ influence in the region. Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine brought a geopolitical shift in the international system, with countries across the world recalculating threat perceptions, resulting in strategic hedging and alliance politics. For instance, in direct response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, two Nordic countries, Finland and Sweden abandoned their longstanding neutrality and joined NATO membership. Ukraine also applied officially to both NATO and the EU to become a member of the alliance and of collective security and economic integrity.
The biggest challenge for India does not lie in growing diplomatic ties with Russia and European partners, but in maintaining balanced and stable relations with both while tackling defence dependency, energy security and geopolitical competition. With Russia, India share dense and defined relations that rests on a historical milestones and a friendship treaty, which is strategically important for security and defence realm. Whereas, with European countries, India evolving future-oriented partnership reflects its sustainable development and progressive outcomes. Therefore, India cannot choose between Moscow and Brussels; it has to balance its partnerships while expanding the scope of cooperation for its vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.
Why Russia Matters
India’s “Special and Privileged Strategic Partner” Russia follows a 10-year agreement under the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commisssion (IRIGC) based on military-technology cooperation for 2021-2031 with key focuses areas on joint research, development, production, and after-sales support of weapons and military equipment. Russia remains India biggest defence supplier, accounting for 50 per cent of India’s in-service military platforms and serving as the largest arms exporter to New Delhi. Several joint defence platforms, including T-90 tanks Su-30MKI aircraft, have been assembled or produced in India. Their bilateral collaboration in co-development and co-production of defence platforms began with the BrahMos missile system. Within the format of the “2+2 Dialogue” between both sides, the Foreign and Defence ministers have consistently provided a platform for strategic and military discussions and cooperation.
Countries across the world were economically impacted after the closer of the Straight Hormuz, which is the world busiest oil shipping channels and, supplies 20 per cent of world oil and gas. For India, it serves as the primary maritime chokepoint, through which an estimated 30 per cent of import volume passway India imports an estimated 88 per cent of its crude oil demand, of which 55 per cent now come from Russian imports. India faced serious backlash from the US for importing oil from Russia. Despite Trump highest 100 per cent tariff threat, India continued to import Russian crude oil, which reached its highest level in July 2026. This reflects India’s defence readiness and economic stability without undermining its core objectives, placing national needs above geopolitical bloc politics. Thus, Russia remains an important partner in defence and energy security, while Europe is increasingly becoming indispensable for India’s long-term economic, technological and geopolitical aspirations.
The reason behind the shift lies in changes in the geopolitical environment, especially after the Russia-Ukraine war. The Russian economy suffered a major setback after Western sanctions. Even the change in Europe’s strategic priorities led to reduced dependence on Russian energy and diversified their trade and supply chains. India, though it remained consistent in its approach of strategic autonomy, calibrated its foreign policy, preserving historical ties with Russia while simultaneously expanding cooperation with the EU and its member states.
Why Europe Matters More
The conclusion of the India-EU FTA in January marked historic achievements in economic cooperation by creating 2 billion job market. Later in February, the participation of the French President in the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, jointly inaugurated the 2026 as the India-France “year of Innovation”. In recent months, the Prime Minister of India’s visits to the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Italy, France and Slovakia indicated India’s greater emphasis on strengthening its partnership with European countries, which is not limited to trade but also extends to clean energy, green hydrogen, advanced technology, and strategic cooperation. This signals a shift from growth to sustainable future development. Europe is India’s largest source of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), offering both strategic interest and financial means because India provides the largest export market, greater investment opportunities, and stronger prospects for long-term economic cooperation.
As India seeks to become a global manufacturing and innovation hub, access to advanced technologies in green hydrogen, semiconductors, pharmaceutical, digital innovation, artificial intelligence, clean energy and climate technologies requires expertise in the field and European countries, especially the Nordic nations, are widely known as globally advanced regions in innovation and technology. India’s advancing technological capacity and expanding cooperation with European partners have the capability to transform strategic partnership into a robust and future oriented collaboration. EU leaders have emphasised “India’s skills, services and scale, with Europe’s technology, capital and innovation” to reduce strategic dependency, particularly on the US and China.
In an increasingly insecure world, Europe is not only making economies stronger but also delivering security to its people, ensuring peace and stability across the world. From a geopolitical perspective, Europe’s closer engagement with India not only strengthens India’s strategic autonomy as a central pillar between the US and Russia, but also shifts geopolitical pressure away from the US and China, forcing both the EU and India to redefine their strategic positioning. Europe serves as a geostrategic anchor for India to diversify its external partnerships and helps reduce strategic vulnerability under an uncertain Trump administration, while also reducing excessive dependency on Russia, which has become increasingly reliant on China following the Ukraine war. Thus, Europe has emerged as a more significant long-term partner not because India is moving away from Russia, but because the evolving multipolar world order, with several centres of power, requires India to broaden its strategic partnerships without indulging in power politics. Indeed, Russia remains important in defence and energy, but Europe offers scale across economic, technological, and geopolitical dimensions that are essential for India’s long-term rise in a multipolar world.
Conclusion
India’s foreign policy reflects a careful and pragmatic effort to balance its relations with Russia and Europe, further demonstrating that strategic autonomy does not require choosing one partner above others, but rather managing diverse relationships to maximise national interests, sovereignty and security. As the world becomes more multipolar and geopolitically uncertain, India’s multi-alignment approach in foreign policy remains essential to sustaining its rise as a global leader. Consequently, Russia and Europe hold significant strategic relevance, supporting India’s pathway to becoming a developed nation by 2047.
