Reuters reported in late June that India is in fast-moving talks with the UAE over the sale of its jointly Russian-produced BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles whose export requires Moscow’s approval. The first foreign export of these arms was to the Philippines in 2024, which Russia approved as part of its regional balancing act that was elaborated on here. In brief, Russia believes that its “military diplomacy” can strengthen ties with the Philippines, one of its most surprising partners, and gently balance China.
Over the intervening two years, India announced that the BrahMos will also be exported to Vietnam, which is Russia’s traditional partner in Southeast Asia. There have also been reports that Indonesia might soon become a customer too. That would further strengthen Russian-Indonesian relations that have experienced a renaissance under new President Prabowo Subianto. Readers should also know that India has excellent ties with the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the UAE.
On that note, many “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” (NRPR) likely aren’t aware, but Russia has excellent ties with the UAE too. President Mohammad Bin Zayed is a close friend of Putin’s, his country’s financial system plays an irreplaceable role in helping Russia mitigate the impact of the West’s sanctions, and many Russians nowadays vacation and even live in the UAE as well. The UAE’s excellent ties with India and Ethiopia, Russia’s oldest African partner, could even lead to a “Multipolar Quad” within BRICS.
At the same time, the UAE is unpopular among NRPRs and most members of the Alt-Media Community (AMC) due to its alliances with Israel and the US, not to mention the role that it played during the Third Gulf War by passively facilitating US strikes against Iran and reportedly launching its own too. For this reason, Russia’s potential (and arguably likely) approval of India’s potential BrahMos sale to the UAE would probably be met with sharp disapproval, and some NRPRs and other AMC folks might condemn it.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but honest observers should know that top NRPR influencers and many of their peers in the AMC engage in something known as “Potemkinism”, which is the creation of alternative realities about Russian interests and policies. In this context, it’s essentially dogma within their communities at this point that Putin is supposedly an anti-Zionist secretly allied with Iran against Israel even though he’s a proud lifelong philo-Semite as proven by the official Kremlin website.
Neither he nor the Russian State are against Iran, but they’re also not militarily allied with it either despite enjoying close military-security ties. Russian-Iranian ties therefore resemble Russian-Chinese ties, and seeing as how Russia has no qualms about helping China’s US-allied Philippine foe balance the People’s Republic despite China being Russia’s top strategic partner, so too does it have no qualms about helping Iran’s US-allied Emirati enemy balance the Islamic Republic. This is the objective strategic reality.
Whether one agrees with Russian policy and its associated calculations or not, they should still accurately articulate the aforesaid even when conveying respectful disagreements of them. What’s most important for Russia is strengthening military-technical ties with India, using them to strengthen the same with their shared partners, profiting accordingly amidst the West’s sanctions, gently balancing its partners (arms sales to China also balance India), and thus flexibly adapting to multipolarity.
