lool You think Russia will take India's side in case you have a conflict with China?
My friend you seem not to understand that in geo politics there are no friends, only interests. Russia has by far more common interests with China than it does with India. They both want to reduce western/U.S influence in their respective sphere of influence(Eastern Europe and Asia) and are hostile to any U.S unilateral moves in the world. Meanwhile India has no such views, In fact India has no problem with our continued dominance as far as we give you some spacetransfer more tech. This can be seen in the formation of BRICS bank, Russia favoured China hosting the headquarters from the start since the knew the Chinese are the biggets economic entity in the group and will contribute more than other, only India refused to accept such an idea.lol This is just one example in which Russia knows it needs the Chinese to counter us in the west/U.S . same with the new deals Russia is now signing with China from economic/financial to cultural partnerships, since we imposed sanctions on Russia for their agression in Ukraine.
To be honest India has no common interests with Russia apart from a seller-buyer military relationship and TOT, thats it. they have no strategic common interests at all. India will do well to get closer to the U.S/WEST than with Russia. For we will support India in the event of conflict with China, but Russia won't believe me, im sure you yourself know this. So talk of India strategic relationship being ensured by Chinas rise is all but laughable. Russia is just doing business with you since she gets most of dollars from their sale of weapons to you.lol thats it.
You say Russia has earned the right to be most important 'FRIEND' to India.loool I told you never to mentioned friend in politics. Only interests are involve. Russia/U.S.S.R did support /provide India with critical weapons systems simply because it was in their interests to do so, since India provided them with a viable alliance to deal with the U.S/China and Pakistan in the region etc. Even now Russia continues to supply you weapons not because they consider you as friend.lol simply because you provide them with necessary dollars needed for them to further/improve their military industry. This is even more so since after the collapse of the U.S.S.R Russia was broke and short of funds, and even now Russia has nothing much to export apart from their soviet era weapons and oil/gas. So they dont have much choice tbh. So lets be realistic bro. Russia is no friend of India, In fact no country in the world is a friend of the other, just interests are friends of countries.lool