Politics
India Refuses To Delete Russia From Its Phone Despite Everyone Asking
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
NEW DELHI, India. In what foreign policy analysts are calling the geopolitical equivalent of keeping an ex's hoodie, India has formally declined, for approximately the forty-seventh consecutive year, to distance itself from Russia, cut its oil imports, condemn the invasion of Ukraine in any meaningful way, or at minimum change its relationship status to "it's complicated."
The relationship between New Delhi and Moscow, which predates Instagram, TikTok, and several sovereign nations currently on the UN Security Council, has survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, three American presidencies that tried to fix it, and at least one very awkward G20 dinner where everyone was seated near each other.
Bloomberg reported this week that despite intense pressure from Washington, India continues to purchase discounted Russian oil, buy Russian military hardware, and send warm telegrams to Vladimir Putin on his birthday, or the Russian equivalent of that, which is presumably also a telegram.
A senior official at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was eating lunch, explained the situation with characteristic clarity. "India's foreign policy is an independent foreign policy," he said, then looked at his phone for a while.
For its part, Russia has been offering India heavily discounted crude oil since Western sanctions made Moscow the geopolitical equivalent of a guy at a flea market who just needs to move some stuff. India, to its considerable credit, recognised a deal and kept shopping. Imports of Russian oil by India have surged since 2022, making New Delhi one of Moscow's most important customers at a moment when Moscow needed important customers the way a person on fire needs someone with a hose.
Washington's position is that this is, to use the technical diplomatic term, not great. American officials have spent the better part of three years explaining to Indian counterparts that Russia is bad actually, a point India has received, processed, and placed in a drawer somewhere near the back.
"We value our partnership with India and continue to have frank conversations about the importance of not propping up the Russian war machine," said a State Department spokesperson, deploying the word frank in the way institutions always deploy the word frank, which is to say in place of the word unsuccessful.
India's argument, which is consistent if nothing else, is that it has been doing exactly this since 1947, that the Soviet Union armed it when no one else would, that Russia still supplies about sixty percent of its military equipment, and that it is under no particular obligation to blow up a seventy-year relationship because Washington had a more recent one go badly.
This argument drives American foreign policy circles absolutely insane, which India has noted and continues to find insufficient reason to change.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited Moscow. He has hugged Putin. He told Putin, in front of cameras, that "this is not an era of war," which was either a diplomatic masterstroke or a sentence that means whatever you need it to mean, depending on which newspaper you read afterward.
A political science professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University described India's approach as "strategic autonomy," which is the academic term for having two best friends who hate each other and refusing to pick a side because both of them are useful and the food at both their houses is good.
When asked whether India would ever truly break from Russia, a New Delhi taxi driver named Arvind, who had not been asked but was present, said: "Brother, we buy their guns, they buy our silence, everyone goes home. This is geopolitics."
Arvind was not available for follow-up comment.
The hoodie, for the record, is still in the closet.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-09-10/why-india-won-t-break-up-with-russia-video