Reuters recently reported that “India has declined Russia’s offer to sell it liquefied natural gas subject to U.S. sanctions despite a shortfall driven by Middle East tensions, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, leaving a tanker bound for India in limbo as talks continue on permitted cargoes…India is open to buying authorised Russian LNG, but most of those volumes are committed to Europe, the source said. The source said China remains a major buyer of both sanctioned and unsanctioned Russian LNG.”
There are three significant takeaways from the above report. First, India is sensitive to the issue of violating US sanctions on Russian LNG, likely because it doesn’t want to ruin its trade talks with the US and/or anger the US into pivoting more sharply towards Pakistan. Second, Russia is deferring to the EU’s sanctions sensitivities over India’s, otherwise it would redirect exports like Putin earlier considered. And finally, China doesn’t care about the US’ sanctions, which raises its profile in Russian policymakers’ eyes.
China’s and the EU’s LNG interests are thus being prioritized over India’s, perhaps due to the first being a US adversary with whom Russia envisages more closely cooperating if there’s no deal over Ukraine soon and the second due to hopes that this will incentivize concessions on Ukraine. The first speculative imperative is sensible, albeit risky since it could spook India into pivoting to the US if a de facto Sino-Russo alliance follows, while the second is arguably wishful thinking. Here are five background briefings:
* 14 March: “The Iranian & Russian Ambassadors Debunked False Claims Of India’s ‘Betrayal’”
* 18 March: “Market Conditions, Not Political Punishment, Account For India’s New Russian Oil Prices”
* 30 March: “The Third Gulf War Prompted Yet Another Recalibration Of India’s Russian-US Balancing Act”
* 27 April: “The New Russian-Indian Military Logistics Pact Sends Five Messages To The World”
* 30 April: “Top Russian & Indian Think Tanks Devised A Plan For Rebalancing Economic Relations”
In short, Russian-Indian ties remain excellent despite malicious claims to the contrary, so much so that they agreed to allow each other to station a set number of troops and equipment on their territory. Even so, the case can be made that some in Russia take such ties for granted as suggested by their country’s deference to the EU’s sanctions sensitivities over India’s, whereas it should be the inverse. More US-authorized Russian LNG should go to India, not the EU, for the three reasons that’ll now be listed.
First, improving ties with the EU is a lost cause as Dmitry Medvedev, Dmitri Trenin, and Fyodor Lukyanov recently suggested, so prioritizing its LNG interests over India’s will achieve nothing other than offending India. Second, about that, such blatant lack of “privilege” for India’s interests (their strategic partnership is officially described as “special and privileged”) could spook it into pro-US pivot mentioned earlier. And finally, that could make Russia dependent on China, which could entail unpredictable consequences.
Russian thinker Sergey Karaganov recently explained that “The idea of a Greater Eurasian Partnership is, among other things, the idea of building balanced relations in Eurasia, where the power of China will be counterbalanced by India, Russia, Türkiye, Iran”. Iran is weakened after the Third Gulf War, however, while Turkiye is now challenging Russia along its entire southern periphery. This leaves India as the only counterbalance to China, so its LNG interests should be privileged, not the EU’s if forced to choose.
