Russia's approach towards India unchanged, always stood for us: Ex-diplomat

Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?

Emphasising that Russia has not changed its approach towards India, unlike the Western superpower, former diplomat Mukul Sanwal has said that Moscow has been helping New Delhi from the transfer of technology to assisting in geopolitics, the country has always stood for its South Asian ally.

Sanwal speaking to ANI on Sunday here said that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Modi during their meeting on Monday will focus on geopolitics. "The future of Asia in a sense. Because here we need to understand that the United States approached India, which was ready to contain China."

"And now that they are getting into a policy of co-existence which is with China and militarily arming with Australia, their approach to us has changed," he added.

"But the approach of Russia towards us has not changed," he said.

Underlining that Russia has been helping India tremendously in Afghanistan and as a bridge to China, he said that "in addition, Moscow has given us new technologies, for example, we are using a Soviet nuclear submarine on lease." "No other power is prepared to share either that technology or give us that kind of status."

"We have a large number of nuclear reactors, we are going to be dependent more on the nuclear energy in future," the former diplomat said, adding, "In defence, missiles, rockets technology, a lot has been shared by the Russians with us. They are prepared to share technology and I think that is a very key significant factor which the West is not prepared to do."

Mukul Sanwal also emphasised that India has a very strong energy partnership with Russia not only in terms of drilling technology and sharing oil fields but also growing technology in the Arctic.

"My sense is that the key areas that will emerge from this, apart from the geopolitical significance, is likely to be more nuclear reactors for energy," he said.

"We have just said that we want to become zero-carbon neutral. The defence contracts and some understanding in central Asia, Afghanistan maybe even Iran that will help us expand our influence in these areas," he added.