European envoys raise the “question of Russia” among the links of India-EU

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

In an opening speech, the European Union ambassador in India Herve Delphin praised the links in India, including trade, technological transfers and strategic partnership, but called the “question of Russia” a problem on which the two parties were not aligned. Other diplomats from the members of the EU of Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Italy and the Czech Republic have also raised that the growing EU-India relationship could be affected by India’s commitment to Russia.

“We must be clearly in the eyes of the questions on which we are not aligned,” said Delphin, when launching an edition of an “India’s World” publication, co-organized by the German reflection group Heinrich Boll Foundation, focused on the India-EU relationship, to be followed by a certain number of tanks of reflection, university and university based in Delhi. “Let us be clear: there is a question of Russia, specifically linked to its war of aggression against Ukraine and its hostile attitude, as we can see in the previous weeks and days and the violation of European air space by Russian drones,” he added, citing discussions in European capitals on the purchase of India Russian oil, and the participation of an Indian military exercise at 16.

“India has spoken for peace. Russia is a strategic partner for India. And India wants to deepen its links with the EU.

Participants in the honor address pronounced by Herve Delphin.

The time for Zapad’s exercise was embarrassing for EU leaders in Brussels, as a trade and agricultural negotiators and a delegation from the EU political and security committee (PSC) at the time. Released from the new “EU-Indian strategy” a few days later, the head of the EU foreign policy, Kaja Kallas, said that she had approached the question with the Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar, adding that if India wanted “closer ties with us, then why participate in exercises that are existential threats to us (the EU)?

Mea rejected criticism

By rejecting criticism, the Ministry of External Affairs had stressed that, while India joined the two most nations, 100,000 soldiers, NATO countries, including the United States, Turkiye and Hungary, which is an EU member, had participated as observers in Zapad-2025. He also pointed out that many European countries continued to buy Russian energy.

“I think that when (India and the EU) want to get closer, (India should) understand that it is something that disturbs (the EU) and concerns us a lot,” said German Ambassador Philipp Ackerman, as part of a round table that followed, entitled “Cultivation of Europe: Navigate in India – Eu Strategic Ties”, when he accused the Russian of ” Russia of provisions “in Russia provisions of provocations” in Russia’s airsives “in Russia” Mabied of Provications “in Russia fusers” disadvocations “in Russian fusers” dispensely “in provocations”. And drones in Poland,

In his summary, Mr. Delphin, the EU ambassador, also said that the “strategic convergence” between Delhi and Brussels had never been larger “, and hoped that the bilateral free trade leaf would be carried out at the end of 2025, and the EU-India strategic roadmap would be launched at EU-India at the beginning of 2026 in Delhi.

“The 13th round (Ale talks) earlier in September was a missed opportunity to take a breakthrough. The EU was and is always ready to conclude on a significant set. We are impatiently awaiting India to engage seriously and moving, as the EU has shown preparation to do, to do with a mutually beneficial transaction “” human values ​​”, cooperative on the world order based on rules, with” largely convergent “interests in Indo-Pacific.