On March 15, the first trial run of a freight train that will directly connect Russia with Pakistan is scheduled to leave Karachi for Moscow before chugging through Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.
This rail link follows a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Railway Cooperation signed between Russia and Pakistan in June 2024.
Top Pakistani exports to Russia and the Central Asian markets can be cotton textiles and food products like rice and wheat while Russia can send its oil, gas, steel and other industrial goods.
Despite the optics of what a Russia-Pakistan direct rail link can mean, not much impact is seen on India by way of implications.
Firstly, India’s bilateral ties with Russia are far more crucial and comprehensive than Russia’s with Pakistan. India remains the world’s biggest importer of military equipment with Russia being the biggest supplier. India’s tanks, fighter aircraft, naval platforms everything has a dominant Russian element.
Second, Russia is the biggest source of energy for India which is the world’s third-largest oil importer and consumer. India has already ratcheted its oil imports from Russia since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine which now stands at about 38 per cent of its total foreign oil imports.
Russia had offered its oil at much-discounted rates to India after Western nations stopped buying from Moscow after the imposition of sanctions.
On the other hand, India also has a lot of exports like pharmaceuticals and consumer goods that have a ready market in Russia.
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Thirdly, the economic and political heft and stature between India and Pakistan is a no-brainer. While India pursues an independent foreign policy under the plank of ‘strategic autonomy’, Pakistan is arguably at best a proxy pawn for China in the strategic game. India’s economy is the fastest growing one while the Pakistani economy is in doldrums. India has all the makings of a democracy that is maturing fast while the Pakistan polity is another name for instability.
While Russia, bogged down with an ongoing war in Ukraine, is on a lookout for newer markets and trade connectivity that will override the Western-imposed sanctions, the beleaguered Pakistan economy is desperately looking for avenues for more revenue.
But significantly, the new connectivity is part of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) network—originally planned in 2000 by India, Iran, and Russia—which is a 7,200 km-long multimodal transport network linking Asia and Europe but with the primary nodal points being St Petersburg and Mumbai.
The multimodal INSTC using a network of sea, road, and rail routes will cut down time taken for movement of goods between the two countries from the existing 40 days to about 20 days bringing down carriage cost between Mumbai and St Petersburg by about 30 per cent.
