The 23rd India-Russia summit held on December 4-5 was dominated by the visible personal bonhomie between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The 70-paragraph joint statement put the outcomes of the summit within the framework of a resilient and relevant forward-looking strategic partnership between Delhi and Moscow.

Against the backdrop of belligerence between Europe and Russia over the war in Ukraine, Prime Minister Modi, in his brief comments before the delegation-level talks on December 5, reiterated that India was “not neutral, but on the side of peace” in Ukraine. Coincidentally, the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, published on the day of the summit, set out the US objective to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict, and “reestablish strategic stability with........

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