ISAS Insights

The meeting between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Saint Petersburg on 1 and 2 June 2017 acquired unusual strategic importance in diplomatic, not defence-related terms. India and Pakistan, the estranged South Asian neighbours, will join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as new members at its summit which begins on 8 June 2017. This marks a challenging prospect in the Russia-India engagement itself, going forward. China and Russia are prime movers in the SCO. India’s recent refusal to join Beijing’s global-scale connectivity initiative which has been endorsed by Putin, and Moscow’s growing interest in good relations with Pakistan, are factors that Modi may have to reckon with in the existing Russia-China-India trilateral forum.