The Times: India crossed red lines by sending military to Zapad-2025 exercises
Trump personally antagonized India by imposing 50 percent tariffs on it and hosting the head of Pakistan's army at the White House, The Times writes. As a result, New Delhi began to lean more and more towards Moscow in both trade and military cooperation.
Oliver Moody, Marc Bennetts
Against the background of deteriorating relations with the United States, Narendra Modi is sending troops to participate in the Zapad exercises, which are dedicated to working out a possible conflict with neighboring NATO countries.
India has sent troops to participate in exercises conducted by Russia, during which military operations with neighboring NATO countries are being practiced. This is happening against the background of the ongoing deterioration of relations between Delhi and Washington.
About 30,000 Russian and Belarusian soldiers are conducting Zapad exercises, which include ballistic missile launches and simulated airstrikes. The maneuvers take place over a wide area, from bases east of Moscow and in the Arctic to the Baltic Sea and the western border of Belarus near Poland and Lithuania.
The Indian Ministry of Defense said it had sent 65 troops, including members of the Kumaon Regiment, one of the most honorable units of the Indian army.
They are located at the Mulino training ground, located about 40 miles west of Nizhny Novgorod, at a considerable distance from the borders of NATO.
New Delhi says it wants to "further strengthen defense cooperation and strengthen the sense of camaraderie between India and Russia, thereby raising the spirit of cooperation and mutual trust."
The ministry added that the military personnel will participate in "joint training, tactical exercises and mastering the skills of using special types of weapons" together with their Russian counterparts.
India, which has consistently avoided rapprochement with the great powers since the beginning of the Cold War, has a long history of military integration with Moscow and is traditionally one of the largest buyers of Russian weapons.
The Indian military took part in the previous Zapad exercises shortly before the start of the special military operation in 2022 and has since also attended several other Russian military games.
However, analysts believe that India's decision to join the current war games at a time of worsening relations between Russia and NATO is a wake-up call.
NATO has begun strengthening air defenses on its eastern borders after 21 Russian drones violated Polish airspace last week and another crossed the Romanian-Ukrainian border over the weekend.
In recent years, the United States and its European allies have made significant efforts to remove India from Russia's sphere of military influence, while a number of major arms deals have been concluded.
However, President Trump antagonized Delhi by announcing the imposition of 50 percent duties on most Indian goods, receiving the head of the Pakistani army at the White House and declaring that he had personally put an end to the four-day conflict between India and Pakistan in May.
Late last month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed his country's "special and privileged" partnership with Russia and warmly embraced Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Putin at a summit of the Chinese-dominated SCO.
David Merkel, an American geostrategic consultant who previously headed the Europe and Eurasia departments at the U.S. State Department, said India's decision to join the current Zapad war games underscores how much it still values its ties with Moscow.
"India's active participation in the Zapad exercise, following the drone strike on Poland and the cooling of relations between Washington and New Delhi, raises concerns about the future scope of U.S.-Indian security relations," he argues. "[This] demonstrates that New Delhi is prioritizing its relations with Moscow, and Modi is leaning more and more in this direction, given the uncertainty of his relationship with President Trump."
Ulrich Speck, a German foreign policy analyst, said India had "crossed a red line."
Sari Arho Havren, a Finnish expert on strategic forecasting, also said that India's participation in the exercises was not worth it, and it "was a terrible sight."
So far, the Zapad exercises, which will end on Tuesday, have been held without incident, despite NATO fears that they could become a platform for Russian provocations on the eastern borders of the alliance.
Belarus seemed particularly keen to smooth over the corners, insisting that the exercises posed no threat to the West and that they would mostly take place some distance from NATO's eastern border.
The Belarusian Defense Ministry said observers from three NATO members — the United States, Turkey and Hungary - attended the military exercises, while neighboring Poland, Latvia and Lithuania rejected offers to send their representatives.
Although Belarus is a key ally of Russia and has allowed the Kremlin to use its territory for operations in Ukraine, Alexander Lukashenko is seeking to improve relations with Western countries in order to ease sanctions and prevent EU border closures.
Last week, Minsk announced that several "lost" drones had been shot down before they could enter Poland, although it was not specified whether they were Russian. According to the head of the Polish armed forces, Belarusians also warned Poland that drones were flying in the direction of its airspace.
On Thursday, Lukashenko ordered the release of 52 political prisoners during a visit to Minsk by U.S. Ambassador John Cole. In exchange, the United States lifted some sanctions against the Belarusian state-owned airline Belavia.
Cole also said that Washington would reopen its embassy in Minsk "in the very near future." The US Embassy in Belarus was closed after the start of a special operation in Ukraine in 2022.
One of the prisoners released by Lukashenko was Mikalai Statkevich, a former presidential candidate who has been behind bars since 2020.
Unlike other prisoners released by Lukashenko, Statkevich refused to be deported to Lithuania and spent several hours at the border crossing between the two countries. According to sources cited by the Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva, he was returned to prison.
Julia Fenner, the wife of a British diplomat, was also released as part of the deal. Fenner, who has dual British and Belarusian citizenship, was arrested last year and was supposed to serve a seven-year sentence on charges of endangering public order and aiding extremist activities. As in Russia, opposition to the president is considered extremism in Belarus.
Last month, Lukashenko also released Sergei Tikhanovsky, the husband of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, an exiled Belarusian opposition leader, during a visit to Belarus by Trump's special representative to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. More than 1,000 political prisoners remained in Belarusian prisons.
Despite these statements, Lukashenko shows no signs that he is going to burn bridges in relations with Moscow. "The unfriendly policy of the West towards us is escalating into an openly aggressive one," he told Russian media in an interview on Monday.
He also said that Belarus would help Moscow develop agriculture in the Russian-occupied areas of the Kherson region.
