NEW DELHI: Russia has identified India and China as its main allies on the world stage, according to a new foreign policy strategy adopted by President Vladimir Putin.
The new 42-page document singled out ties with China and India, stressing the importance of "the deepening of ties and coordination with friendly sovereign global centres of power and development located on the Eurasian continent."
According to the document, Russia will continue to build up a particularly privileged strategic partnership with India with a view to enhance and expand cooperation in all areas on a mutually beneficial basis and place special emphasis on increasing the volume of bilateral trade, strengthening investment and technological ties, and ensuring their resistance to destructive actions of unfriendly states and their alliances.
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"In order to help adapt the world order to the realities of a multipolar world, Russia intends to make it one of priorities to enhance the capacity and international role of the interstate association of BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the RIC (Russia, India, China) and other interstate associations and international organizations, as well as mechanisms with strong Russian participation," the docuemnt states.
India and Russia are long-standing partners and have shared close ties over the decades.
Russia has been the largest supplier of weapons to India, accounting for nearly 50% of the latter's arms imports from 2016-2020.
Both China and India have also ramped up oil imports from sanctions-hit Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
India has maintained a neutral stance over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which completed a year on February 24. However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has advocated for a peaceful resolution to the conflcit through dialogue.
Last year, PM Modi told Putin that "today's era is not an era of war."
(With inputs from agencies)
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