Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Russia was greeted with predictable disappointment in European capitals. The trip marked the Indian prime minister’s first international foray following his re-election in June, and his first to Moscow in nearly a decade. The sight of Modi in a bear hug with Vladimir Putin rekindled old worries about India’s enduring Russian ties and the sincerity of more recent pledges to build new partnerships in the West. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was especially blunt, describing Modi’s choice of destination as “a huge disappointment and a devastating blow to peace efforts.”  

European and north American leaders should not draw the wrong conclusions about India’s long-term trajectory, however. Modi’s move is a reminder of his unwillingness to abandon Russia. But he is also trying to strike a delicate balance of managing India’s historic links with Moscow while not obviously deepening them. In fact, embracing the world’s advanced industrial democracies is now a greater Indian strategic priority – and one that presents geopolitical opportunities for Europe.

Moscow ended up on Modi’s itinerary for three broad reasons. Political priorities were one, providing a high-profile and domestically popular international platform following a relatively disappointing election result for Modi. Second were more regular and practical issues relating to the energy and weapons that Russia supplies to India. Finally, and most importantly, were ever-growing worries about China, which Indian security leaders now view as the country’s primary security threat.

Policymakers in New Delhi fret that Moscow is becoming more reliant on Beijing. Were India ever to face a military conflict with China, it would be forced to rely on Russia for military supplies and spare parts. In truth there are few signs India is succeeding in reducing Putin’s structural reliance on China, which is driven by dynamics unleashed by the invasion of Ukraine. But equally there are few signs New Delhi used Modi’s trip to push forward ambitious new Indo-Russian plans. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan sounded relaxed at least, noting the lack of “deliverables” in areas such as military and technological cooperation.

This reflects a shift in thinking among India’s national security establishment over recent years. New Delhi must continue to do what it can to limit Moscow’s drift towards Beijing, this line of analysis suggests. But it also recognises that, beyond fuel and ammunition, India gets increasingly few rewards from its Russian partnership.

By contrast, India’s engagement with the West has grown substantially. Relations with the United States are growing stronger in areas such as defence and technology. India is developing important military partnerships with the likes of France and Israel, seeking to wean itself off Russian kit in the long term. In Asia, it has drawn closer to Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Historically, India tended to be cautious of deepening ties with the West and sympathetic towards Russia. Now the opposite is broadly true.

Similar progress between India and Europe has been slower, in part because of divergent geostrategic priorities. India seeks cordial ties with Russia and wants to push back against China. Europe aims for the opposite. But the growing axis between Moscow and Beijing now provides a common cause for concern in both Brussels and New Delhi. The European Union’s increasingly tough approach to China is helpful here too. Ursula von der Leyen recently published political guidelines for her second term as president of the European Commission. For the first time these included promises to seek to “deter” China – the kind of uncompromising language that will be welcome in New Delhi.

None of this is to say that Europe’s relations with India are set to be easy. Long-time European concerns about political values are now less of a barrier, at least. India’s voters earlier this year denied Modi an absolute parliamentary majority, reducing in the process worries about democratic ‘backsliding’. But Ukraine will continue to be a thorny issue, not least given India’s non-committal role in peace talks and its refusal to support placing “territorial integrity” as an important component of future negotiations. The same is true of India’s recent habit of testing international norms, most obviously via bungled assassination plots in both the US and Canada, aimed at alleged Sikh separatists.

Leaders in Europe should not worry about pointing out these challenges, where they exist. If they refrain from doing so, Indian decision-makers might assume they have been given a free pass because of the Western appetite for closer relations with New Delhi. Yet, as ECFR has argued previously, there now exists a significant opportunity to reboot ties between Europe and India. Von der Leyen’s guidelines also included a pledge to develop a “new Strategic EU-India Agenda”, potentially heralding an ambitious new agenda ranging from economic security to critical and emerging technologies. And all this could be unveiled at a major EU-India summit set to be held early next year – a meeting with the potential to unveil far more of substance than Modi’s recent modest visit to Moscow.