That's not true. If India was so important for Russia today, no such visit would have even be possible. Russia is a power despite the fact they have a bit of economic depression but it is Russia that has India by balls and not the other way round.
Pakistan took a long time in talking the step but it took and Russia welcomed it.
India can and is replacing Russia easily. Having said that, Russia and India still have tens of billions of dollars defense deals between them, which Russia sorely needs to offset the damage sanctions have done to the Russian economy.
Russia isn't in a "bit of economic depression", it is in full on recession, and the economy isn't getting better. With India's economy rapidly growing, and is probably going to be 3-5 times larger than Russia by 2025-30, Russia isn't going to give up on their most valuable customer.
Even though India has replaced Russia with US as its top defense partner, a majority of their equipment is still Russia, so you're somewhat right that Russia still has influence in India, but that is EXACTLY why the Indians are diversifying their defense base, so the Russians can't continue to blackmail them (late deliveries, questionable quality, cheap systems but extortionist level expensive maintenance -mainly spare parts-); Russia is afraid of this, especially considering that oil and defense system sales are the only things keeping the Russian economy from collapsing, and if their biggest customer fails to buy more systems, Russia's economy will be in big trouble.
Within a few decades, India will be mostly self-reliant, when it comes to defense; They've been investing tens of billions in R&D, and most of Russian hardware, India will (in a few decades) have their own domestic alternatives for. By 2030-40, India will probably only import very few high end defense equipment (while developing domestic solutions), and probably through tenders, which means that Russia will be out of luck, as it is outmatched by most European and Western consortiums.
This is both why Russia is still reliant on India, and why Russia also realizes that it must start diversifying its customers base, which is why they've been courting Pakistan.
tl;dr Russia needs India more than India needs Russia. India needs Russia only temporarily, but within the near future, India will no longer be forced into relying on Russia. Russia's economy needs Indian sales to offset poor economy, and bring in much needed cash.
India may be interested in CPEC but why do think Pakistan and China would entertain India. Does not make any sense at all. China and Pakistan would surely keep India out of CPEC as that is in the strategic interest of both of them.
Debatable.
When CPEC was first announced, there were talks that China and (a reluctant Pakistan) were open to the idea of India using CPEC. Mind you, I don't actually have proof of this, as it was mainly rumors flying around.
