Indian troops have participated in the Russian-led Zapad-2025 military drills, Russian state agency TASS said on Tuesday, highlighting Moscow’s close ties with New Delhi, whose growing ties with the United States have been strained by the imposition of hefty tariffs by President Donald Trump.
The Indian Ministry of Defence confirmed it had sent 65 armed forces personnel to participate in the drill.
At the wargames, Russia and Belarus also rehearsed the launch of Russian tactical nuclear weapons as part of joint military exercises, which also featured the Oreshnik hypersonic missile that Moscow test-fired last year in the war with Ukraine.
This is not the first time that India has participated in Russian military exercises.
In 2021, shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, New Delhi said it sent an unspecified number of troops to Russia’s Volgograd region to join activities linked to “Counter Terrorism and Conventional operations”.
But the latest exercises come at a time when India-US relations are under strain over New Delhi’s continued purchase of oil from Russia during the war on Ukraine, and at a time when Europe is on edge over perceived provocations from Moscow.
Western military analysts say the multi-nation drills are designed to intimidate Europe. Last week, Poland and NATO said they shot down Russian drones that entered Polish airspace.
In a statement, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence confirmed that the use of tactical nuclear weapons had been rehearsed along with the deployment of Russia’s hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile that Moscow fired at Ukraine for the first time on November 21 last year.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said it was only natural that Russian tactical nuclear weapons were also part of the five-day war games that concluded on Tuesday.
“We are practising everything there. They (the West) know this too; we are not hiding it. From firing conventional small arms to nuclear warheads. Again, we must be able to do all this. Otherwise, why would they be on Belarusian territory?” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Belarusian state news agency BelTA.
“But we are absolutely not planning to threaten anyone with this.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who made a surprise visit to the Nizhny Novgorod region to observe the drill, said 100,000 soldiers participated in the Zapad (West) 2025 exercises.
Wearing military attire, Putin listened to briefings from Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and his deputy. The president said the exercises were intended to rehearse elements of defending the “union state” of Russia and Belarus.
On Tuesday, the US confirmed that its military officials observed the military drills the previous day after accepting an invitation to the event in Belarus.
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the Pentagon accepted the invitation “in light of recent productive bilateral engagements between our countries”, adding it “is a common practice between militaries”.
According to Russian news reports, troops from India, Iran, and Bangladesh, as well as from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mali, also participated in the exercises.
India’s Russia-US balance
India’s participation in the drills comes at a time when it is trying to juggle traditionally warm relations with Russia, which go back to the erstwhile USSR, and increasingly close ties with the US.
Throughout the Cold War, India chose to remain non-aligned, but it sourced most of its weapons from the Soviet Union. Most of New Delhi’s current defence equipment was purchased from Moscow, but over the past two decades, it has attempted to diversify its weapons imports.
Still, India’s participation, led by a battalion of the highly respected Kumaon Regiment and aimed at strengthening “the spirit of cooperation and mutual trust” with Russia, will have raised eyebrows amid signs that the US may be losing a key ally in Asia, seen as an important counterweight to China.
Strains have emerged between the two countries last month after the Trump administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on Indian imports, accusing New Delhi of spurring Moscow’s deadly attacks on Ukraine with its purchases of Russian oil.
Despite the tensions, Trump announced last week that India and the US are continuing negotiations to address trade barriers between them, and on Tuesday, he greeted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who celebrated his 75th birthday.
Modi, whose government has publicly refuted Trump’s claims that the US president brokered peace between India and Pakistan after clashes in May, responded to Trump’s phone call by thanking him, and describing him – as he used to before tensions broke out – as a “friend”.
Iran-Russia continue strategic alignment
Iran also participated in this year’s Zapad, according to the TASS, though the presence of its troops was not confirmed by official channels.
Tehran is known to be a close strategic partner of Russia, supplying it with self-detonating Shahed drones used in the Ukraine war and, according to Western intelligence sources, ballistic missiles.
This year, the two countries signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership treaty”, deepening their relationship on military and other fronts.
Tehran and Moscow launched a joint military drill in the Caspian Sea after Israel launched bombings of Iran, leading to 12 days of war. The US also joined the war after targeting an Iranian nuclear site with bunker buster bombs.