INDIA - The New Kid on the Block

India’s Swing-State Moment: How a Quiet Strategy Reshaped a Global Conflict

For more than a decade, many of the world’s major think tanks – from Carnegie and Brookings to the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Lowy Institute – described India as a “potential swing state,” a country whose independent choices could one day shift the balance of power between warring blocs. This idea sat comfortably in policy papers, academic journals, and commentary platforms, but it remained largely theoretical. India was rising, yes. Its economy was expanding, its diplomatic weight was growing, and its strategic autonomy was celebrated in New Delhi as a point of civilizational pride. And yet, in most global crises, India was seen as an observer rather than a participant - a country whose position mattered symbolically, but rarely substantively.

All of that changed with the Russia–Ukraine war.

When the conflict began in early 2022, India was barely considered a stakeholder. In television studios and foreign-policy circles across the West, there was a quiet expectation that New Delhi would align, if not politically then economically, with the Western sanctions regime. Even within India, the dominant sentiment was that this conflict belonged to Europe and Russia, not to us. Our official position – articulated clearly by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar – was that India would pursue its national interest and avoid being drawn into a confrontation that did not directly involve it. At the time, this sounded like an expression of distance. In retrospect, it was the first marker of a strategy that would eventually alter the conflict’s economic geometry.

The war’s military battles unfolded far from Indian shores, but its economic shockwaves did not. As Europe hurried to sanction Russian oil and gas – the backbone of Moscow’s war-time economy – the global energy system began to buckle. Prices surged, shipping routes destabilized, and the insurance, banking, and logistics networks that supported seaborne energy trade were thrown into turbulence. Russia found itself with discounted oil it needed to sell, and the West found itself with an inflationary storm it needed to contain. In between these two realities sat India, a large, fast-growing importer with vast refining capacity and a willingness to maintain its long-standing relationship with Moscow despite considerable diplomatic pressure.

This is where the story takes its decisive turn.

What began as opportunistic purchases of discounted crude soon transformed into a structural role. India emerged as the second-largest buyer of Russian oil and, more importantly, the world’s single most important refiner of Russian-origin crude. Indian refiners – especially Jamnagar – took distressed Russian barrels, processed them into diesel, petrol, and aviation fuel, and exported the products back into global markets, including Europe. This was not a symbolic gesture of neutrality; it was a material intervention in the global energy system. Indian demand kept Russian revenues flowing. Indian refining kept European markets supplied. Indian shipping and insurance arrangements helped stabilize global oil flows.

Without intending to, India had become the economic stabilizer of a war in which it was not a direct participant.

This alone would have been geopolitically significant. But the contrast with China made it strategic. Beijing, sensing Russian vulnerability, used the opportunity to demand sharper discounts, deeper energy integration, pipeline access, and greater leverage in Arctic and Far East projects. Its support was transactional and power-maximizing. India’s support, by contrast, was stabilizing rather than extractive. New Delhi bought Russian oil not to subordinate Moscow, but to maintain a long-standing partnership and secure its own energy needs without destabilizing global markets.

In a conflict where most countries took sides rhetorically, India shaped outcomes materially. This earned quiet respect in Moscow. Despite Russia’s deepening military and technological dependence on China, President Vladimir Putin and the Russian foreign-policy establishment repeatedly signaled their desire to elevate ties with India to the same level – not because India matched China in economic or military power, but because India provided something China did not: economic predictability without political domination.

This raises the question that many avoided asking publicly but acknowledged privately: Could the war have unfolded differently if India had chosen otherwise? The uncomfortable but analytically honest answer is yes. Had India joined the sanctions regime, Russia’s revenues would have collapsed. China alone could not have absorbed the volumes India handled. Global energy markets might have spiraled into chaos, pushing oil well above $150 per barrel. Europe would have faced a harsher inflation crisis. Russia’s fiscal position, already strained, might have cracked under the pressure. Western strategists now privately admit that India’s role – though not coordinated with anyone – was systemically important to keeping Russia in the conflict.

This reality did not escape Europe’s attention. A series of diplomatic episodes revealed growing discomfort with India’s stance. European leaders questioned India’s purchases, threatened action against Indian refiners, and eventually, in an unprecedented move, three European ambassadors in Delhi co-authored an op-ed indirectly criticizing India’s Russia policy. India’s Ministry of External Affairs publicly called the move “unusual and unacceptable,” signaling an unmistakable message: Europe’s conflict is not India’s conflict, and India’s Russia policy will not be dictated by external sensitivities.

The pressure on India did not come from Europe alone. The United States, under President Trump, added a parallel layer of strain by re-imposing steep tariffs on Indian exports and openly questioning India’s trade practices. These moves were not merely commercial irritants; they were strategic signals aimed at testing India’s willingness to distance itself from Moscow. Washington assumed that economic pressure, combined with diplomatic persuasion, would create enough friction for India to reconsider its stance. Yet, New Delhi held its course. At a moment when Russia was isolated, Europe was indignant, and the United States was economically coercive, India’s refusal to shift its Russia policy reflected something deeper – an assertion that strategic autonomy cannot be traded even for short-term relief from tariff pressure. The more the United States leaned in, the clearer India’s resolve became.

By late 2025, the balance of forces on the ground in Ukraine had shifted. Russia holds the stronger military hand, the United States appears increasingly inclined toward negotiating an end to the war, and Europe finds itself uneasy with the direction of these talks. Against this backdrop, President Putin’s upcoming visit to India – confirmed by both sides – feels less like a symbolic gesture and more like a continuation of a long-term strategic logic. The agenda remains predictable: defence, energy, nuclear cooperation, labour mobility, and trade architecture. For Russia, India is an indispensable stabilizing partner. For India, Russia remains a pillar of strategic depth in a world growing more polarized.

What this war ultimately revealed is something that had been theorized for years but never demonstrated at scale: India is not a passive observer in great-power politics. Nor is it a country whose choices exist at the margins of global outcomes. Instead, India is emerging as a systemic swing power – a state that does not join alliances, but whose independent decisions can shift the trajectory of conflicts involving much larger actors.

India did not fight in the Russia–Ukraine war.
It did something more consequential for a rising power:
it made decisions that mattered.

And in doing so, India quietly showed the world what it means to be a swing state in the 21st century – a country whose strategic autonomy is not just a philosophy, but a source of real global influence.