According to www.scmp.com, India and Russia signed the Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement (RELOS) in Moscow in February 2025, and it entered into force in January 2026.
Terms and Scale of Military Access
The RELOS enables two-way access to airbases and ports for logistical support of ships, aircraft, and personnel. According to Russia’s official legal information portal on April 17, 2026, the pact permits up to five warships, 10 aircraft, and 3,000 troops to be simultaneously stationed in the partner country’s territory for a period of five years, with an option to extend the agreement for another five years.
Speaking at the State Duma in Moscow after RELOS’ ratification in December 2025, First Deputy Chairman of the International Affairs Committee Vyacheslav Nikonov confirmed these numerical thresholds. The agreement does not open permanent military bases to each other’s armed forces but facilitates rotational deployments during joint exercises, training, and humanitarian missions.
Strategic Implications for Arctic and Indian Ocean Presence
The pact is expected to expand India’s strategic reach into the Arctic region, where Russia operates over 40 icebreakers and maintains 11 active military bases north of the Arctic Circle — data from the Norwegian Polar Institute’s 2025 Arctic Military Infrastructure Report. Meanwhile, Russia gains enhanced logistical access to Indian Ocean facilities, including India’s naval base at Karwar (INS Kadamba), which hosts up to 20 warships and supports deep-water berthing for nuclear-powered vessels.
This coordination complements India’s existing logistics agreements: it has similar pacts with the United States (Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement, or LEMOA, signed in 2016), France (2018), and Australia (2020). However, as Nandan Unnikrishnan, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, noted, it was an “anomaly” that India had such arrangements with Western partners but not with Russia — its largest defence supplier, accounting for 45% of India’s military imports between 2019 and 2023, per SIPRI Arms Transfers Database.
Supply Chain and Defence Industrial Integration
Indian media reports indicate RELOS will strengthen long-term military cooperation, especially in servicing India’s Russian-origin equipment — including 42 Su-30MKI fighter jets, 11 Kilo-class submarines, and the INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier. Maintenance downtime for these platforms has averaged 22 months for major overhauls at Russian shipyards since 2021, according to India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) 2024 Defence Audit Summary.
For supply chain professionals, RELOS introduces new dual-use infrastructure considerations: port call scheduling now requires alignment with Russian Arctic shipping windows (June–October), while aviation logistics must accommodate Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft operating out of India’s Hindon Air Base — which handled 147 sorties supporting humanitarian missions in the Bay of Bengal in Q1 2026 alone, per Indian Air Force Operational Data Bulletin.
Source: South China Morning Post
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
