Over the course of the past years, the Indian position on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was to remain neutral. Now that Russia invaded Ukraine, many political leaders around the world condemned those actions, and many international cooperations with Russia were stopped (Like Germany stopping the permission process for NordStream 2).
However, India still tries to remain neutral in the ongoing conflict. In the recent (mostly symbolic) UN resolution to condemn Russia's actions they abstained . (just as well as China. The rest of the council voted in favor of the resolution. Russia used their veto power as expected). India stated their reasons for doing so as follows:
"India is deeply disturbed by recent turn of developments in Ukraine. No solution can ever be arrived at the cost of human lives. All member states need to honour these principles in finding a constructive way forward. Dialogue is the only answer to settling differences and disputes, however daunting that may appear at this moment. It is a matter of regret that the path of diplomacy was given up. We must return to it. For all these reasons, India has chosen to abstain on this resolution,"
(source: Times of India)
So while they spoke out against the war itself, they carefully avoided to name a perpetrator.
The next days will show if India will be able to maintain their policy of neutrality or if they will succumb to the pressure to take a side in the conflict. At the moment it is difficult to make any secured prognosis on the matter.
But should India decide to not condemn Russia and keep importing arms, then international sanctions are unlikely to be much of an obstacle. A global banking boycott of Russia would be a bureaucratic hindrance for private businesses, but not so much for state actors. Governments don't need SWIFT bank transfers to pay their bills. They have many other options. UN sanctions are very unlikely, considering that Russia is a veto-power in the UN security council. So any organized sanctions against Russia will be on a voluntary basis anyway, giving any government in the world the freedom to decide if they want to participate or not.
And how other governments would react in this still hypothetical scenario that India keeps buying arms from Russia is even more speculative. They could make a big deal out of it, or just as well ignore the matter if doing so is politically opportune. Time will tell.
