Why the Trump-Putin Alaska meeting may not ease tensions between India, US, and Russia

President Donald Trump is preparing to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska -- a Cold War-era hub for monitoring the Soviet Union that remains strategically important today. The White House says the meeting will focus heavily on the war in Ukraine, though expectations for an immediate breakthrough remain low.

The venue itself carries symbolism: created in 2010 by merging Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson, the base was a key node in deterring Soviet advances and now plays a central role in US Indo-Pacific military posture. This will be Putin’s first visit to US soil in a decade and the first by a Russian leader to Alaska in more than 150 years, since Tsar Alexander II sold the territory to the United States in 1867.

Trump has framed the talks as “constructive conversations” but cautioned they would be “really a feel-out meeting.” Still, the encounter comes amid significant geopolitical churn involving India, Russia, and the US.

Tariffs as a trigger

On Monday, Trump said his administration’s tariffs on India for importing Russian crude had delivered a “big blow” to Moscow’s economy, calling New Delhi Russia’s “second largest oil buyer.” The US has imposed a 25% reciprocal tariff on Indian goods, plus an additional 25% on purchases of Russian oil, a combined 50% duty.

While smartphones and pharmaceuticals have been spared, Bloomberg Economics estimates that if the full rate remains, US-bound exports from India could fall by 60%, potentially shaving nearly 1% off GDP. Without exemptions, the decline could reach 80%.

Diplomatic dangle

The tariff escalation, however, has produced an unexpected diplomatic outcome. As Nandan Unnikrishnan, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, writes in The Times of India, New Delhi moved swiftly to reassure Moscow it would not abandon Russian energy imports under US pressure. India signed a protocol on industrial cooperation in aluminium, fertilisers, railways and mining technology, and dispatched National Security Adviser Ajit Doval to Moscow.

Doval’s meetings with Putin and senior Russian officials underscored the “multifaceted” nature of the India-Russia relationship, particularly in defence cooperation, Unnikrishnan noted. His visit coincided with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff meeting Putin, paving the way for the Alaska summit after Moscow described a US proposal on Ukraine as “acceptable.”

Ukraine peace or a pause?

Unnikrishnan points that, "analysts recall in April 2022 Istanbul talks between Moscow and Kyiv nearly yielded a peace deal involving Ukrainian neutrality and territorial retention apart from Crimea. That plan collapsed after Western powers, then confident of defeating Russia strategically, backed Kyiv’s continued resistance."

He writes the West now recognises the war is unwinnable and that the only plausible settlement involves Ukraine abandoning NATO membership and ceding further territory. Whether the Alaska talks are driven by sanctions squeezing Russia or by Russian battlefield gains remains an open question, he added.

Even if Friday’s meeting produces a stabilisation of US-Russia ties, Unnikrishnan argued it is unlikely to reset Moscow’s strained relations with Europe or loosen its strategic alignment with Beijing. For Russia, he said, the priority remains reducing US-led Western dominance while avoiding a US-China bipolar world, making a full break with China improbable.

India’s strategic calculus

For India, a thaw between Washington and Moscow could be a long-term strategic gain, potentially reversing additional tariffs and easing geopolitical navigation. Unnikrishnan says stabilised great-power relations would help New Delhi focus on its central challenge, economic development, without being derailed by global turbulence.

However, he cautioned that Russia cannot meet all of India’s developmental needs. New Delhi must secure long-term terms for energy supplies, even if sanctions on Russia are lifted, and continue deepening ties with the West. “If India aspires to be a great power, it will have to maintain working relationships with all other great powers,” Unnikrishnan says, adding that strategic and economic “guardrails” are essential to manage inevitable frictions.

For now, all eyes turn to Anchorage. Whether the Alaska summit becomes a diplomatic milestone or just another symbolic Cold War echo will depend on whether Trump and Putin can move beyond “feel-out” talks toward substantive agreements on Ukraine and the global order it has unsettled.