India and Russia Signed a Friendship Treaty on 9 August 1971, and by 2024-25 Their Partnership Included a Joint Missile Company, Two 1,000 MW Reactors at Kudankulam and a Record $68.7 Billion in Trade

India and Russia signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation in New Delhi on 9 August 1971. The partnership that followed now includes a missile company in which India holds 50.5 percent, Su-30MKI fighters built at the Nashik division of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), two 1,000 MW reactors running at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu, and a record $68.7 billion of trade in 2024-25.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) calls the relationship a “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership,” a status the two governments agreed in December 2010. This piece uses the word partner, which is the ministry’s own: its brief of 19 June 2026 describes Russia as a longstanding and time-tested partner. Each section below says what each side gets, with the figures and the dates they apply to.

What the 1971 text says

The treaty was signed by India’s Minister of External Affairs, Swaran Singh, and the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko. The text, reproduced from the MEA’s record in the University of Tokyo’s World and Japan database, sets out four commitments that matter for India.

In Article IV the Soviet Union records that it respects India’s policy of non-alignment. In Article VIII each side promises not to join any military alliance directed against the other. In Article IX each side promises not to help any third party that is in armed conflict with the other, and says that if either faces an attack or threat, the two “shall immediately enter into mutual consultations.” Article XI gave the treaty a life of twenty years, renewing automatically in five-year periods unless one side gives twelve months’ notice. The operative promise in the text is consultation and restraint.

The help was already visible on the ground. SAIL’s own history says the Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh was established in 1955 with assistance from the former Soviet Union and commissioned in 1959. SAIL states that Bhilai is the exclusive supplier of rails to Indian Railways and makes the world’s longest single-piece rails, at 130 metres.

How the partnership got its names

According to the MEA, the two countries signed a Declaration on the India-Russia Strategic Partnership in October 2000, and the Russian President’s visit to India in December 2010 raised it to a Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. Two commissions run the day-to-day work. One covers trade, economy, science and culture and is co-chaired by India’s External Affairs Minister. The other covers military and military-technical cooperation and is co-chaired by the two defence ministers. A “2+2” format, with foreign and defence ministers meeting together, was added in December 2021.

The Annual Summit between the Prime Minister and the Russian President is the top mechanism. The MEA counts 23 so far, alternating between the two countries. The latest was held in New Delhi on 4 and 5 December 2025, and the MEA’s brief says it produced 21 announcements, including 16 memorandums and agreements on mobility, fertilizers, health, food safety, maritime cooperation, customs and other subjects.

Defence: from buying to building

The December 2025 joint statement describes the military side as “reorienting presently to joint research and development, co-development and co-production of advanced defence technology and systems,” in response to what it calls India’s quest for self-reliance. The Press Information Bureau (PIB) says a military-technical cooperation agreement for 2021 to 2031 was signed in New Delhi on 6 December 2021.

The clearest example of that shift is BrahMos. BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia, with an authorised capital of $300 million split 50.5 percent Indian and 49.5 percent Russian. The company says the programme turned the two countries from buyer and seller into co-developers and co-producers. The missile’s design, tests and export contracts are covered in our BrahMos story.

The Su-30MKI shows the licensed-production route. On 12 December 2024 the Ministry of Defence signed a contract with HAL for 12 more of the fighters at about ₹13,500 crore, to be made at HAL’s Nashik division with 62.6 percent indigenous content, according to the PIB release. The PIB’s December 2025 explainer adds that T-90 tanks are made in India under licence and that the AK-203 rifle is made at a joint venture in Korwa. It lists INS Vikramaditya, the refurbished former Russian carrier Admiral Gorshkov, and says a majority of India’s conventional and nuclear-powered submarines are of Russian origin. The Navy commissioned the frigates INS Tushil in December 2024 and INS Tamal on 1 July 2025, both at Kaliningrad, Russia.

The S-400 air-defence system is bought rather than co-produced, as the PIB explainer notes. The Week reported on 12 January 2026 that the contract covers five regiment sets at ₹40,000 crore, that three had been delivered, and that a senior defence official quoted by Defence Security Asia expected the rest by 2027.

Russia’s weight in Indian imports has changed as Indian industry has grown. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) measured Russia’s share of Indian arms imports at 70 percent in 2011 to 2015, 51 percent in 2016 to 2020 and 40 percent in 2021 to 2025. SIPRI partly credits India’s growing ability to design and produce its own weapons for a 4.0 percent fall in Indian imports between the last two periods, and says India took 48 percent of all Russian arms exports in 2021 to 2025. The wider picture of Indian-built defence equipment is in our piece on India’s shift from defence importer to maker.

Energy: oil, fertilizer and six reactor units

Russia sells India crude oil and petroleum products, vegetable oil (mainly sunflower oil), fertilizers, coking coal, and precious stones and metals, according to the MEA brief. The Centre for Policy Research, using Ministry of Commerce data, put Russia’s share of India’s crude imports at 35.1 percent by value and 35.8 percent by volume in 2024-25. ThePrint, citing the same ministry’s data, reported that India’s crude imports from Russia were worth $47.8 billion in 2025-26.

The joint statement calls energy a “significant pillar” of the partnership and lists oil, refining, LNG and LPG infrastructure, underground coal gasification and nuclear projects as areas where Indian and Russian companies work or could work together.

Nuclear power is the most visible part. The Minister of State for Atomic Energy told the Rajya Sabha on 12 February 2026 that the Kudankulam project was conceived in 1988, construction began in 2002 and the first unit became operational in December 2014. The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) lists Unit 1 as entering commercial operation on 31 December 2014 and Unit 2 on 31 March 2017, at 1,000 MW each. NPCIL says Units 3 to 6, another four reactors of 1,000 MW, are being built with technical cooperation from Russia under an intergovernmental agreement.

The physical progress figures the government gave the Rajya Sabha on 5 February 2026 were 80.51 percent for Units 3 and 4 and 41.56 percent for Units 5 and 6. The minister said Units 3 and 4 are targeted for completion in 2026-27 and Units 5 and 6 by 2030, and that geopolitical developments would not disrupt the projects. Six units of 1,000 MW each add up to 6,000 MW. The joint statement also commits the two sides to life-cycle support for Kudankulam and to further talks on a second Indian site, for which India “will strive to finalize formal allotment.”

Space: from Soyuz T-11 to Gaganyaan

Aryabhata, India’s first satellite, was launched on 19 April 1975 on a C-1 Intercosmos vehicle from the Volgograd launch station, which ISRO notes is now in Russia. Its mainframe stayed active until March 1981. We tell that story in our account of Aryabhata.

On 3 April 1984 Rakesh Sharma of the Indian Air Force lifted off from Baikonur on Soyuz T-11 as part of the Soviet Interkosmos programme. ISRO’s Human Space Flight Centre records that he spent 7 days, 21 hours and 40 minutes aboard the Salyut 7 station and took part in 43 experiment sessions, mainly in bio-medicine and remote sensing, and that India became the 14th nation to send a person to space. The full flight is in our Rakesh Sharma article.

The link has carried into the current human spaceflight programme. The PIB’s December 2025 explainer says Indian astronauts have completed training in Russia under Roscosmos, and the joint statement welcomes ISRO’s partnership with Roscosmos in human spaceflight, satellite navigation and planetary exploration, with progress on rocket engines. India’s own astronaut programme, and what has flown so far, is described in India’s Gaganyaan astronauts.

Trade: a record in 2024-25 and a $100 billion target

The PIB’s explainer puts bilateral trade at a record $68.7 billion in 2024-25: $4.9 billion of Indian exports, mainly pharmaceuticals, chemicals, iron and steel and marine products, and $63.8 billion of imports from Russia. The MEA’s June 2026 brief gives $59.863 billion for 2025-26. ThePrint reported, citing Ministry of Commerce data, that India’s imports from Russia in April to June 2026 were $25.6 billion, up 52.6 percent from $16.77 billion a year earlier.

The leaders’ target is $100 billion of annual trade by 2030, which the December 2025 joint statement calls the revised target. The statement lists steps toward it: removing tariff and non-tariff barriers, smoother payment mechanisms, logistics and insurance. The MEA says the terms of reference for an India-Eurasian Economic Union free trade agreement have been finalised, and the summit adopted a programme for economic cooperation to 2030.

India’s stated policy

India states its policy in its own terms. At the Munich Security Conference on 14 February 2026 the External Affairs Minister said: “We are very much wedded to strategic autonomy because it is very much a part of our history and our evolution.” On energy, he said countries look at availability, costs and risks and decide what is in their best interest.

After the United States sanctioned the Russian oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil in October 2025, the MEA’s spokesperson said on 30 October 2025 that India’s “decisions regarding oil purchases are guided by market dynamics.” The MEA’s June 2026 brief says the 27th session of the trade and economic commission is expected in New Delhi later in 2026.