Kirill Novikov arriving in
New Delhi 1947 to establish formal
diplomatic relations with India Goods uncovered from archaeological site such as
Pazyryk indicates that nomads inhabiting the area conducted trading activities with India during 4th-3rd century BCE. In 1468, Russian traveller
Afanasy Nikitin began his journey to India for trade. Between 1468 and 1472, he travelled through
Persia, India and the
Ottoman Empire but returned soon within three years from Indian subcontinent as he could not afford much to himself. In the 18th century the Russian city of
Astrakhan was frequently visited by Indian merchants when it was under
Mughal rule. Russia and Iran were used as a transit trade between
Western Europe and India, especially after
Peter the Great requested from
Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb the commencement of trade relations in 1696. Decades later, the Russian czar personally granted Anbu-Ram Mulin's Indian trading company the right to resolve property rights issues in Astrakhan, thus allowing Indians to bring in caravans with their
linen fabrics,
cottons,
silks, and Indian, Persian and Uzbek cloth. The Astrakhan governor was ordered to show "kindness and goodwill" to the Indian merchants in Russia, who cherished their religious freedom and special trade privileges that they never had in other Eastern countries; until the middle of the 18th century, members of the community only paid 12
rubles a year as rent for a shop in the Indian Trading Compound, and were exempted from taxes and duties by the Russian authorities. The value of goods exported by them from Astrakhan into the interior cities of Russia in 1724 exceeded 104,000 rubles, amounting to nearly a quarter of all Astrakhan trade, until
British occupation stopped independent Indian trade with Russia altogether. In 1801,
Tsar Paul ordered plans made for the invasion of British India by 22,000
Cossacks, which never actually occurred due to poor handling of preparations. The intention was that Russia would form an alliance with
France, and attack the
British Empire and its weak point using a French corps of 35,000 men and a Russian corps of 25,000 infantry and 10,000 mounted Cossacks. Some Cossacks had approached
Orenburg when the tsar was assassinated. His successor
Alexander I immediately cancelled the plans. The Embassy of India in Moscow (; ) was built in 1900, and transferred to the Indian government in 1952 to become an embassy building. The embassy consists of several buildings, including an aristocratic style "Chancery Building", a rational-modern style ambassador's residence, and a French style building known as "Napoleon's
Dacha". The Chancery building was previously owned by an arts patron, a textile magnate, and the Soviet government, before being transferred to the Indian government in 1952 to become the embassy it is today. Initially it was housed in the
Travancore House located at Curzon Street, now Kasturba Gandhi Marg. In several years India allocated previously undeveloped land to create a district of Chanakyapuri for diplomatic missions. The
Soviet Union was assigned two lots of total acres of 22 acres, and in February 1956 a lease agreement was concluded between the two countries. A declassified 1985 CIA report states that the Press Section of the Soviet Embassy "is a
KGB operation that specializes in fast-breaking disinformation campaigns, principally targeted against the United States." In particular, the efforts of this operation were directed at the implication of the United States in the
assassination of Indira Gandhi and at linking
Jeane Kirkpatrick with a plan to
Balkanize India.
India and the Soviet Union India's official diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union were established in April 1947, shortly before it declared its independence from Britain. As
Izvestia reported on 15 April 1947, “as a result of an exchange of letters between the Indian ambassador to China, Mr.
K. P. S. Menon and the Soviet ambassador to China
Apollon Petrov, it was established that the Government of the USSR and the Government of India will publish simultaneously in
Moscow and
New Delhi the following official statement: “In an effort to preserve and further strengthen the friendly relations existing between the USSR and India, the Government of the USSR and the Government of India have decided to exchange diplomatic representations at the rank of Embassies”. In 1951, the USSR exercised its
veto power on the Kashmir dispute in support of India. In 1953,
Joseph Stalin told
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan that, "Both you and Mr. Nehru are persons whom we do not consider our enemies. This will continue to be our policy and you can count on our help." The relationship strengthened by 1955 and represented the successful Soviet attempts to foster closer relations with countries belonging to the
non-aligned movement. In 1955, Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru made his first visit to the
Soviet Union in June 1955, and
First Secretary of the Communist Party Nikita Khrushchev's return trip to India happened in the fall of 1955. In India, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union supported Indian sovereignty over the disputed territory of the
Kashmir region and also over Portuguese coastal enclaves such as
Goa. The Soviet Union's strong relations with India had a negative impact upon both Soviet relations with the
People's Republic of China and Indian relations with the PRC during the Khrushchev period. The Soviet Union declared its neutrality during the 1959 border dispute and the
Sino-Indian War of October 1962, although the Chinese strongly objected. The Soviet Union gave India substantial economic and military assistance during the Khrushchev period, and by 1960, India had received more Soviet assistance than China had. This disparity became another point of contention in Sino-Soviet relations. In 1962 the Soviet Union agreed to transfer technology to co-produce the
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 jet fighter in India, which the Soviet Union had earlier denied to China. In 1965, the Soviet Union successfully served as a peace broker between India and Pakistan after the
Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. The Soviet
chairman of the
Council of Ministers, literally Premier of the Soviet Union,
Alexei Kosygin, met with representatives of India and Pakistan and helped them negotiate an end to the military conflict over
Kashmir. In 1971, the former
East Pakistan region initiated an effort to secede from its political union with
West Pakistan. India supported the secession, and the U.S. considered the possible entrance of China to further destabilize India in its taking up a moral leadership in the area. However, China, after the
Sino-Indian War, did not want to participate in the United States' bid in supporting
Yahya Khan's
atrocities in present-day Bangladesh. Meanwhile, India's relationship with the Soviet Union grew strategically and resulted in the
Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation of August 1971. In December, it helped India halt American adventurism by using military power and end the conflict which ensured the victory of the secessionists in the establishment of the new state of
Bangladesh. Relations between the Soviet Union and India did not suffer much during the right-wing
Janata Party's coalition government in the late 1970s, although India did move to establish better economic and military relations with Western countries. To counter these efforts by India to diversify its relations, the Soviet Union proffered additional weaponry and economic assistance. During the 1980s, despite the 1984 assassination by
Sikh separatists of Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi, the mainstay of cordial Indian-Soviet relations, India maintained a close relationship with the Soviet Union. Indicating the high priority of relations with the Soviet Union in Indian foreign policy, the new Indian prime minister,
Rajiv Gandhi, visited the Soviet Union on his first state visit abroad in May 1985 and signed two long-term economic agreements with the Soviet Union. According to
Rejaul Karim Laskar, a scholar of
Indian foreign policy, during this visit, Rajiv Gandhi developed a personal rapport with
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. In turn, Gorbachev's first visit to a Third World state was his meeting with Rajiv Gandhi in New Delhi in late 1986. General Secretary Gorbachev unsuccessfully urged Rajiv Gandhi to help the Soviet Union set up an Asian collective security system. Gorbachev's advocacy of this proposal, which had also been made by
Leonid Brezhnev, was an indication of continuing Soviet interest in using close relations with India as a means of containing China. With the improvement of Sino-Soviet relations in the late 1980s, containing China had less of a priority, but close relations with India remained important as an example of Gorbachev's new Third World policy.
Modern political relations with Russia's president
Vladimir Putin in October 2000. ,
Manmohan Singh meeting the
president of the Russian Federation,
Mr. Vladimir Putin, in
New Delhi on 24 December 2012. The first major political initiative, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, between India and Russia began with the Strategic Partnership signed between the two countries in 2000. President Vladimir Putin stated in an article written by him in
The Hindu, "The Declaration on Strategic Partnership between India and Russia signed in October 2000 became a truly historic step". Former prime minister
Manmohan Singh also agreed with his counterpart by stating in a speech given during President Putin's 2012 visit to India, "President Putin is a valued friend of India and the original architect of the India-Russia strategic partnership". Both countries closely collaborate on matters of shared national interest these include at the
UN,
BRICS,
G20 and
SCO. Russia also supports India receiving a permanent seat on the
United Nations Security Council. In addition, Russia has vocally backed India joining the
NSG and
APEC. Moreover, it has also expressed interest in joining
SAARC with observer status in which India is a founding member. In November 2022, India's External Affairs Minister
S. Jaishankar praised Russia as "exceptionally steady" and "time-tested" partner. In January 2023, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova backed India in its dispute with British national broadcaster
BBC over a documentary critical of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi, stating this was part of an “information war” against “global centers of power pursuing an independent policy”. After the start of the
Russian invasion of Ukraine and because of
international sanctions against Russia, it started to provide oil and chemical fertilisers at discounted rate to India, increasing India-Russia bilateral trade volume from $13 billion [2021-2022] to $27 billion within 2022 making it the largest oil and fertiliser supplier to India. By 2023, their trade was expected to cross $30 billion. India has also refused to accept the
price cap on Russian crude imposed by the
Western world. However, former CIA director
William J. Burns has said that Indian PM
Narendra Modi's words with Russian president Vladimir Putin has helped averting the
nuclear war threat from Russia. Russia's new foreign policy concept after the start of its invasion of Ukraine proposes to deepen its relations with India and China as a counterweight to the West, and Moscow even rejects the validity of the term
Indo-Pacific. Some views believe that Putin's acceleration closer to China makes “[India-Russia] relationship is going down from being a very high-value strategic partnership to a transactional one”. India has also stepped up "Multi-Alignment Strategy" to mitigate the negative impact of the deepening of
China-Russia relations. in
Kazan, Russia, 23 October 2024 In June 2023, an event at India's embassy in Moscow called "Namaste Moscow" was held to facilitate cultural exchange between India and Russia. In August 2023, the embassy held celebrations commemorating 76 years since
Indian independence. In December 2023, India's External Affairs Minister
S. Jaishankar met Putin and Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov over a five-day visit, praising the two countries' "all-time high" trading volume, praising the trade as "balanced", "sustainable" and providing "fair market access". In July 2024, Prime Minister Modi visited Moscow to meet Putin, his first visit to Russia in five years. The two embraced as Modi climbed out of his car; this act was criticized by Ukrainian president
Volodymyr Zelenskyy as it happened on the same day that
Russian missiles struck a children's hospital in Kyiv. During the visit, the two countries discussed nine strategic areas for closer economic cooperation, including nuclear energy and medicine, with a goal to significantly improve bilateral trade by 2030. In 2025, several top U.S. officials and political figures have accused India of effectively financing Russia’s war in Ukraine by serving as a major buyer of Russian energy. In late 2025, the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom significantly escalated
sanctions against Russia's two largest oil producers,
Rosneft and
Lukoil, to curtail the financing of the war in Ukraine. These measures have significantly disrupted India's oil trade, leading to a sharp decline in imports from these specific entities. Putin visited New Delhi on 4–5 December 2025 for the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit, hosted by Modi.
IRIGC The Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission (IRIGC) is the main body that conducts affairs at the governmental level between both countries. ==Diplomatic missions==