The just-concluded summit between Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, while highlighting the determination of both countries to pursue their national interest despite geopolitical pressures, also marked a fundamental restructuring of bilateral ties.

The realignment is prompted by the understanding that, while the two countries share a common political vision of a multipolar Asia, bilateral trade has to diversify beyond defence and energy, to create a robust economic environment that would be a solid foundation for a sustainable relationship.

This explains why there were no announcements of big defence or energy contracts. This led to some commentaries hastily declaring that the summit was devoid of substance and was essentially an exercise in creating the right optics for domestic audiences — for Putin to show that the West has failed to isolate Russia, and for India to show that pressure from third countries would not determine its foreign policy. The superficiality of such analysis becomes evident if one looks back at previous summits and compares them to the latest one. First, defence deals are usually not announced during summits. Second, the previous meetings focussed primarily on specific areas and produced big results in these areas. This time,........

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