Russian-Indian Nuclear Cooperation
Dmitry Pobedash, Ural State University

Russia is the legal successor to the USSR and tends to claim a comparable role and place in the world-order. Yet it has neither the power of its predecessor nor the political will to try and change the rules. The paper describes Russia’s developing nuclear cooperation with India even at the expense of stretching the rules set within the framework of world-order that was created by the Big Five, for the Big Five.

In the world-order that emerged after the World War II, five of the victorious Allies – the USA, The UK, the USSR, France and China – were seen as the prime movers that largely defined the rules and made others comply. These five powers were the permanent members of the UN Security Council which made them the most powerful decision-makers in global politics. They were also originally given the largest quotas (and, accordingly, the largest voting power) in the Bretton Woods institutions that defined the global monetary order. The same idea of the Big Five being in a different category from all other countries was evident in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) which recognized the same five countries as the only legal possessors of nuclear weapons. In words of Narayanan Komerath, Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, ‘It is no coincidence that the veto in the present UN Security Council is held by the P-5. Recognition as a nuclear weapons state is de facto veto power’.[1] 
Other countries were supposed to forego the idea of having their own nuclear arsenals and were promised access to peaceful use of nuclear energy in return. Article III.2 of the NPT demanded that signatories should not export either fissionable material or means of its processing or production to non-nuclear-weapon states, unless such exports were subject to IAEA safeguards. India did not sign the NPT; it was in response to India's testing a nuclear explosive device in 1974 that countries-exporters of nuclear or nuclear related goods established the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) with the aim of holding nuclear proliferation in check. 
As India is neither a member of NPT nor did it agree for comprehensive safeguards to be implemented in its nuclear industry, NSG Guidelines restricted any nuclear trade with India for 34 years. That state of affairs dramatically changed on 6 September 2008 when NSG permitted its member states civil nuclear cooperation with India. The change opened an estimated $60-100 billion Indian nuclear market for legitimate trade. It is small wonder then that this highly unconventional treatment of international laws was hailed as an historic step forward, naturally, by India, but also by the USA, France, and Russia. The latter three countries immediately signed bilateral agreements on nuclear cooperation with India. Russia can hope to gain access to 25-30 per cent of Indian nuclear market. 
Russia actually had cooperated with India in nuclear sphere even before it was legitimized by the NSG. For example, Russia supplied 58 tonnes of low enriched (up to 3 per cent of uranium-235) uranium fuel pellets in 2001, up to 60 tonnes in 2006. The Russian official position is that the supplies were absolutely legitimate and completely complied with NSG guidelines. Rosatom press-service stated that the Russian Federation considered those supplies to be exceptional cases, and emphasizes that they were 'dictated by the necessity of safe operation of units 1 and 2 of “Tarapur” nuclear power plant'.  It was claimed that the supplies were conducted 'in concordance with nuclear export Guidelines of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (Part 1, paragraph 1b)'.  Actually, that must be a misprint as the document that Rosatom press-service should refer to is Part 1, paragraph 4b., which says that such transfers of nuclear items 'should be authorized only in exceptional cases when they are deemed essential for the safe operation of existing facilities'. 
Another example of Russia's attempts to circumvent NSG guidelines was the project of floating nuclear power plants that could sell energy to India, while reactors themselves would be operated by Russian personnel and would remain Russian property. In that case there would be no transfer of technology or goods to be regulated by NSG. 
This project was interpreted as a Russian alternative to the deal offered by the USA. Dr. Dipak Basu even claimed that 'India will be able to produce as many nuclear weapons as it wants if it accepts the Russian proposal and reject the Indo-US nuclear deal immediately'. In his opinion, Russia can supply all energy India needs and at a much lower price than the USA. Besides, India in that case will not be restricted by any international commitments and can both use its own nuclear facilities to produce nuclear weapons and 'will be at liberty to test further nuclear weapons in future. This is exactly what President Putin has suggested'. 
In the process of building reactors in India, Russia seems to be eager and willing to share technical information. This sharing also leads to better bargains for India. For instance, the market price of 1 nuclear unit of the type that is being built in Kudankulam is $2 billion, but India gets a 30 per cent discount, as Russia only supplies the equipment while building, construction and assembly are done by Indian workers. Russia is also planning to keep supplying the plant with fuel throughout its life – the cost of that is comparable to the cost of building the plant. TVEL, a Russian manufacturer of nuclear fuel, already signed a $700 million contract with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India for fuel supply. 
This willingness to share technological information with India can be illustrated by the fact that, according to Russian and Ukrainian nuclear experts, only about 80 Russian personnel are working on the site in Kudankulam, while about 2000 Russian personnel are working on the site of a similar Tianwan project in China. 
NPT has been the corner-stone of the nonproliferation regime that took shape in the world-order defined by the Big Five of international relations. As Talat Masood Lt.-Gen (Rtd.), a political and defense analyst who retired in 1990 as Secretary for Defense Production in the Ministry of Defense of Pakistan, puts it, ‘US-India nuclear deal means de facto elevating India to the status of the sixth nuclear power. Status of India is improved at the expense of downgrading the role of NPT and NSG’. Though the legal successor to the Soviet Union, Russia does not have the same power to change the rules as its predecessor did. India became a de-facto nuclear weapon state, an enormous market for trade – including that in nuclear and related goods and technologies – and a potential ally that could decisively influence the balance of power in the region. Now it would be difficult to argue that India in any sense has less rights to be considered a great power than, say, China. Still, Russia did not have the political will to initiate changes in international nonproliferation regimes that would recognize the changed role and place of India and that would be extremely profitable for Russia as well. The changes were brought about largely by the USA; Russia seized the opportunity to pursue its economic interests and to make its deals with India fully comply with the international nonproliferation regimes.