India has maintained good relations with all the post-communist countries. But the strongest relations are still those between Russia and India.
INDO-RUSSIAN RELATIONS IN POST COLD WAR PERIOD:
1. Indo-Russian relations are embedded in a history of trust and common interests and are matched by popular perceptions.
2. Russia and India share a vision of a multi-polar world order. It means the co-existence of several powers in the international system, collective security (in which an attack on any country is regarded as a threat to all countries and requires a collective response), greater regionalism, negotiated settlements of international conflicts, an independent foreign policy for all countries, and decision making through bodies like the UN that should be strengthened, democratized, and empowered.
3. More than 80 bilateral agreements have been signed between India and Russia as part of the Indo-Russian Strategic Agreement of 2001.
4. India stands to benefit from its relationship with Russia on issues like Kashmir, energy supplies, sharing information on international terrorism, access to Central Asia, and balancing its relations with China.
5. Russia stands to benefit from this relationship because India is the second largest arms market for Russia. The Indian military gets most of its hardware from Russia.
6. Since India is an oil importing nation, Russia is important to India and has repeatedly come to the assistance of India during its oil crises.
7. India is seeking to increase its energy imports from Russia and the republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. 8. Russia is important for India’s nuclear energy plans and assisted India’s space industry by giving, for example, the cryogenic rocket when India needed it. Russia and India have collaborated on various scientific projects.
