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President Putin bestowed Russia’s highest civilian award of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called onto Prime Minister Modi right after the beginning of India’s month-long electoral process in order to boost his bid for re-election in a similar manner as he just did for “Israel’s” Bibi after he gifted the latter 20 “IDF” remains that his forces dug for him in Syria at Tel Aviv’s behest.

Putin’s Diplomatic Intervention

Russia really wants Modi to win reelection, and it’s not shy about making its preference known to the rest of the world after President Putin just bestowed his country’s highest civilian award of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called onto the Indian Prime Minister right after the beginning of the South Asian state’s month-long electoral process. This was clearly done with the intent of signaling Russia’s approval for the incumbent just like when President Putin recently gifted “Israeli” Prime Minister Netanyahu (“Bibi”) 20 “IDF” remains that his forces dug up for him in Syria at Tel Aviv’s behest. While it’s obvious that the establishment of “Putinyahu’s Rusrael” was the motivation behind this unprecedented outreach to Moscow’s main Mideast partner, it’s less clear what’s driving President Putin to so actively seek Modi’s reelection as well.

Saving “Brother” Bibi

To be clear, the Russian leader’s actions don’t qualify as “meddling” even though they’re clearly intended to boost the incumbents’ electoral prospects because they’re done overtly at the Head of State level instead of in the clandestine manner that the Mainstream Media has conditioned the global masses to imagine whenever they come across that buzzword. There’s no doubt that President Putin’s last-minute diplomatic intervention made all the difference in getting Netanyahu reelected, but nobody in “Israel” is seriously accusing their Prime Minister of being a “Russian puppet”. In fact, those that voted for him because of the enormous favor that Russia did for “Israel” in returning the “IDF” remains did so precisely because they want the incumbent to continue strengthening bilateral relations and indefinitely perpetuate the existence of “Putinyahu’s Rusrael”.

Russia’s Cash Cow

Something similar might very well take place in India as well, though for different reasons. There isn’t any similar far-reaching geopolitical design behind President Putin’s awarding of Russia’s highest state honor to Modi because all that the two leaders seem to be interested in is continuing their multibillion-dollar transactional business interests related to the military-industrial complex and nuclear energy industry. These deals are more important to Russia than ever before because they function as much-needed sanctions relief, while the Indian side receives high-level technologies and know-how even if it’s in the process of gradually diversifying its wares away from Russia and towards its new Western partners of the US, France, and “Israel” instead. Even so, such a shift won’t be be completed for at least another decade, and Russia knows that five more years of Modi would guarantee a lot more business for half that period.

Confusing The “Chattering Class”

Indian pundits are very confused, however, since Pakistangate has come to define the election thus far after PM Khan said that Modi’s reelection might offer the best prospects for peace in Kashmir. The reactionary narrative was then spun by some of the “chattering class” that the BJP and its coalition allies, not Congress and theirs, are “Pakistan’s prime choice”, though now there’s little question that none other than President Putin himself also wants the incumbent to win too, so much so that he even timed his award for precisely right after India’s month-long electoral process began. It’s taboo for any party to openly attack Russia and what it stands for, yet there’s no avoiding that “Putin’s choice” is the same as “Pakistan’s choice”, and that the Russian leader was actually following in the footsteps of the Pakistani one by indirectly endorsing Modi.

Words vs. Actions

Manipulative forces in the media might allege that this is further proof of what some of them have ridiculously claimed is a global Ruso-Pakistani plot to wage Hybrid War on the entire world, but in reality, it’s actually just proof of the pragmatism of those two Great Powers’ leaders. President Putin simply wants to cut more multibillion-dollar deals during Modi’s possible second term in office while PM Khan wisely expects right-wing resistance to any possible deal on Kashmir to be less if Modi is in power instead of the left-leaning Congress. The difference, however, is that PM Khan only stated his opinion and didn’t go into the realm of actions, whereas President Putin went out of his way to award Russia’s highest honor to Modi at a very strategic moment meant to win him votes by evoking the nostalgia of “Rusi-Hindi Bhai Bhai”.

From Pakiphobia To Russophobia?

Therefore, anyone alleging Pakistani “meddling” in India’s election is compelled to say the same about its Russian variant seeing as how President Putin did much more to help Modi win reelection than PM Khan did. This isn’t to argue that either of them were “meddling”, but just to point out the double standards in reporting that have now caused the Indian “chattering class” to enter into a state of cognitive dissonance and become unsure of what story to spin. Continuing to attack Pakistan for a much milder version of what Russia did would also implicate Moscow by innuendo, yet Pakistan is such an obsession for so many during this election that it’s almost impossible for Indians to stop talking about it. As such, it’ll be interesting to see whether the Pakiphobia dies down or if it morphs into Russophobia by the end of the election.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.