Russia’s evolving “no limits” defence and nuclear partnership with India

Russia and India have instituted what amounts to a "no limits” partnership, a phrasing previously reserved for Moscow's relationship with Beijing. Many reframed avenues of cooperation are becoming resurgent by progressively deepening cooperation across defence, nuclear technology, and logistical integration.

The December 4-5, 2025 state visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi demonstrated this structural transformation through substantive commitments that reveal how both nations are dismantling traditional supplier-purchaser dynamics in favour of collaborative development and co-production frameworks that characterise genuine no limits partnerships.

The no limits partnership finds its operational expression in fundamentally reoriented defence cooperation. Historically, the India-Russia military relationship operated within conventional parameters. Between 1969 and 1998 Moscow supplied weapons systems, India purchased them either off the shelf or as license production runs which were little more than knocked down kits being assembled in India. The current trajectory reverses this logic entirely.

Rather than importing finished Russian weapons platforms, India now increasingly participates in collaborative innovation that births new defence technologies through bilateral research initiatives. Joint Research and Development(R&D), co-development, and co-production of advanced defence systems have become the explicit operational framework.

This encompasses specific commitments to encourage manufacturing in India of spare parts, components, and aggregates for Russian-origin defence systems, coupled with technology transfer mechanisms enabling Indian firms to develop indigenous production capabilities. During Putin’s visit, Russia's Deputy Economic Development Minister Vladimir Ilychev aptly spoke about eliminating Indian tariffs to diversify Russian exports toward manufactured goods.

Moscow no longer envisions India merely as an energy consumer but as an integrated manufacturing partner within Russian supply chains. The military platforms currently under discussion exemplify how this no limits partnership extends into operational capabilities spanning air, land, and maritime domains.

The S-400 Triumf air defence system represents the most visible component of deepening defence integration. India currently operates four regiments of the S-400, an advanced long-range air defence platform capable of simultaneously engaging up to 36 targets at ranges exceeding 400 kilometres.

Preliminary discussions during the summit concerning additional S-400 regiments and even its successor the S-500 suggest India's air defence architecture will progressively include more Russian systems. However, Russia's ongoing delays in delivering previously contracted S-400 regiments, a reality acknowledged by both nations complicate New Delhi's confidence whilst simultaneously illustrating the dependency dynamics characteristic of no limits partnerships.

Furthermore, Russia has also reportedly not taken the conversation forward on the S-500 as its own forces are yet to field the system operationally. The Su-57 fifth generation stealth fighter jet was another big ticket platform under discussion for procurement.

Russia's fifth-generation combat aircraft, comparable in concept to the US's F-22 Raptor, was once projected to be India’s first inducted stealth fighter and was partly funded by India in its R&D phase under the code name FGFA/PAK-FA. However in 2018 before any of the licensed production airframes could roll off the assembly line the Indian Airforce (IAF) withdrew from the programme citing underwhelming performance of the prototypes.

After the withdrawal India focused on its own indigenous design the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) but has failed to make any significant progress on moving beyond the blueprint stage, leaving a massive capability gap in India’s fighter fleet.

However with shrinking options, India may be returning to the Su-57 programme but given its 2018 withdrawal it is unlikely to get a subsidised price. While Russia has offered to locally produce the Su-57 in India, it is likely to be a progressive technology transfer agreement.

Under this scenario the first few units or batches may be just assembled knocked down kits, but just as the case with the Su-30MKI, the raw material to component manufacturing may gradually become more cost effective. However these economies of scale may only be feasible if India procures over 200 units of the fighter, as has been the case with the MiG-21 and Su-30MKI, two Russian origin aircraft that were workhorses for the IAF and were extensively reengineered and adapted for various roles through the decades.

Although the MiG-21 has now been phased out in any sort of crewed role, the Su-30MKI is also on the agenda to get upgraded components rivaling the Su-35, with the programme being designated “Super Sukhoi”.

The BrahMos cruise missile system also illustrates how existing platforms within the no limits partnership framework could undergo continuous technological evolution through bilateral collaboration. Originally a joint Russian-Indian venture, BrahMos is billed as the world's fastest cruise missile, with supersonic variants operational across Indian naval and air forces, and exported to the Philippines.

Ongoing discussions between Moscow and New Delhi now centre on hypersonic BrahMos variants, missiles capable of sustaining speeds exceeding Mach 5 throughout flight trajectories, developed through ongoing Indo-Russian research initiatives. The upcoming nuclear submarine lease arrangement demonstrates how the no limits partnership extends into maritime domain capabilities.

Russia is on track to lease an Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine equipped with advanced sensors, cruise missiles, and stealth capabilities to India successively for the third time.

This lease arrangement while often compared to the US-UK-Australia AUKUS pact, is far older in precedent and more comprehensive, stretching as far back as 1987 when India first got a Charlie class Nuclear attack submarine for training its crews and christened it Chakra-I.

While India returned Chakra-I in 1990, it leased another nuclear attack submarine, this time an Akula-class in 2010, and returned it in 2021.

Now with the anticipated delivery of another Akula class boat, India will likely have a Russian nuclear attack submarine in its fleet until its own domestically constructed nuclear attack submarines are commissioned. Civil nuclear cooperation has undergone equally transformative reorientation within the no limits partnership framework.

Beyond traditional procurement of Russian nuclear technology for India's Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant(KKNPP), both nations have committed to accelerated discussions on future VVER reactor design - the Russian technology currently deployed at KNPP.

The substantive shift involves joint research initiatives and localised manufacturing of nuclear equipment rather than straightforward technology transfer as was the case in the 1980s when the original deal for KKNPP was negotiated.

India's government target of achieving 100GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 now intersects with bilateral commitments to jointly finalise allotment for constructing additional KNPP-sized installations as well as Small and Medium Sized Reactors(SMR)s Russia’s state owned nuclear conglomerate Rosatom may supply.

In additon, Rosatom has successfully broken ground on SMRs in India by signing a feasibility study agreement with India’s southern state of Maharashtra in 2024 and also reportedly receiving an inquiry on what kind of solutions it could offer Indian Railways.

With the dual lever of defence and civil nuclear cooperation, the transformative emerging framework of a “no limits” partnership is already well poised between India and Russia.