Gilbert Doctorow, one of the world’s foremost experts on Russian affairs, wrote today on Antiwar.com that, as important as the Feb. 4 Putin-Xi Jinping Joint Declaration was for giving Putin the back-up to confront the U.S./UK/Nato effort to place NATO weapons on Russia’s border, Putin’s earlier visit to India was of equal importance. There, President Modi ignored the massive pressure from the U.S. and proceeded in expanding the Indian purchase of Russian military hardware, including the S-400 air defense system.
Doctorow writes: “I would stress that the visit to India was no less important to Moscow than the visit to Beijing. Whereas the United States has for the past five years been applying ever greater efforts to de-couple from China and to implement a variety of military, political and economic policies to `contain’ the PRC, it has been at equally great pains to woo India away from its decades long friendship with Russia and to bring Delhi into active participation in the plans for `Indo-Pacific’ defense directed against the People’s Republic of China.”
