External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited Moscow for two days to prepare ground ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's upcoming visit to India. Discussions centred on bilateral trade, energy cooperation, and resolving the rupee-rouble payment imbalance. India-Russia trade has surged sharply since 2022, driven largely by discounted Russian crude oil imports. The visit signals India's intent to deepen strategic autonomy while managing Western concerns about its continued engagement with Russia.

India-Russia relations rest on a decades-old framework. The Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation was signed in 1971, followed by the Declaration on the India-Russia Strategic Partnership in 2000, upgraded to a 'Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership' in 2010. The Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) is the primary bilateral economic coordination body.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, India has significantly increased crude oil imports from Russia, making Russia India's largest oil supplier — a sharp reversal from pre-2022 when it barely featured in India's import basket. This has created a structural trade imbalance: India imports far more than it exports, generating a large rupee surplus in Russian accounts that Moscow cannot easily spend. Resolving this — either through third currencies, a rupee-rouble mechanism, or barter-style arrangements — is a central diplomatic challenge.

Jaishankar's Moscow visit is preparatory diplomacy: setting the agenda, resolving pending items, and ensuring Putin's India visit yields substantive outcomes. India's position — maintaining strategic autonomy, not joining Western sanctions, yet not endorsing Russian actions — is a recurring UPSC theme. The examiner tests India's foreign policy doctrine (strategic autonomy, multi-alignment), the bilateral institutional framework, and the economic specifics of the energy relationship.