European envoys raise ‘Russia question’ amid deepening India-EU ties

India has to “square” its strategic partnership with Russia with its desire to deepen ties with the European Union (EU), European envoys said in New Delhi on Wednesday (September 24, 2025), questioning India’s participation in the recent “Zapad” military exercises and Russian oil purchases and calling for “sensitivity” to European concerns over the conflict in Ukraine.

In a keynote address, the European Union’s Ambassador to India Herve Delphin hailed improvements in India-EU ties, including trade, technology transfers and the strategic partnership, but called the “Russia question” an issue on which the two sides were not aligned. Other EU-member diplomats from Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, Italy and the Czech Republic also raised concerns that the growing EU-India relationship could be affected by India’s engagement with Russia.

“We have to be clear-eyed about those issues on which we are not aligned,” Mr. Delphin said, at the launch of an edition of a publication “India’s World”, co-hosted by German think-tank Heinrich Boll Foundation, focused on the India-EU relationship, attended by a number of Delhi-based think tanks, academics and scholars. “Let’s be clear: there is a Russia question, specifically linked to its war of aggression against Ukraine and its hostile attitude towards as seen in past weeks and days and the violation of European airspace by Russian drones,” he added, citing discussions in European capitals over India’s purchase of Russian oil, and the participation of an Indian military contingent in the Russia-Belarus Zapad-2025 exercise from September 12 to 16.

“India has pronounced itself for peace. Russia is a strategic partner for India. And India wants to deepen its ties with the EU. This will require further consideration in Delhi on how to square those terms,” Mr. Delphin said.

Participants at the keynote address delivered by Herve Delphin.

The timing of the Zapad exercise was awkward for EU leaders in Brussels, as trade and agricultural negotiators and a delegation from EU’s Political and Security Committee (PSC) were in Delhi at the time. Releasing the new “EU-India Strategy” days later, EU Foreign Policy chief Kaja Kallas said she had taken up the issue with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, adding that she said that if India wanted “closer ties with us, then why participate in exercises that are existential threats to us (the EU)?”

MEA rejected criticism

Rejecting the criticism, the Ministry of External Affairs had pointed out that while India joined the two plus-nation, 100,000 troops-strong exercise, NATO countries, including the U.S., Turkiye, and Hungary, which is an EU member, had participated as observers in Zapad-2025. It had also pointed out that many European countries continued to buy Russian energy.

“I think when [India and EU] want to grow closer, [India would] have to understand that this is something that bothers [the EU] and concerns us big time,” said German Ambassador Philipp Ackerman, as part of a panel discussion that followed, entitled “Cultivating Europe: Navigating India–EU Strategic Ties”, where he accused Russia of “unheard of provocations” in sending fighter jet sorties through Estonian airspace and drones into Poland, and possibly Denmark.

In his summation, Mr. Delphin, the EU Ambassador, also said that “strategic convergence” between Delhi and Brussels has “never been greater”, and hoped that the bilateral Free Trade Agreement would be done by the end of 2025, and the EU-India Strategic Roadmap would be launched at the EU-India summit in early 2026 in Delhi.

“The 13th round (of FTA talks) earlier in September was a bit of a missed opportunity to make some breakthrough. The EU was and is still ready to conclude on a meaningful package. We look forward to India engaging in earnest and moving, like the EU has shown readiness to do, towards a mutually beneficial deal,” Mr. Delphin added, citing high bilateral trade ($140 billion in trade in goods in 2024) and as democracies promoting “human values”, cooperative on global rules-based order, with “largely converging” interests in the Indo-Pacific.