RUPEE-RUBLE TRADE ESSENTIAL

President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of the Russian Federation must be aware that it was the Rupee-Ruble trade agreement of 1953 that opened the sluice gates of the immense volume of exports from Moscow to New Delhi.

- M.D. Nalapat

The Rupee-Ruble agreement established a close relationship between the two countries, so much so that when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, India was the only country that repaid its debt to Russia to the extent that it paid back the full value of the ruble before the Soviet collapse. After that, the value of the ruble collapsed, and the few other countries that paid back the successor Russian Federation did so using the collapsing value of the ruble as the exchange value for repaying Soviet-era debt. The sacrifice of its own interests for the benefit of the Russian Federation was repaid by Russia in a contrary manner. Firmly in the pocket of oligarchs loyal to Washington rather than their own country, the new leader Boris Yeltsin gave the cold shoulder to India and its interests to please the US under President William Jefferson Clinton. Yeltsin, by his policy of assisting the US, impoverished the Russian population. Mafias seized control of the properties of the erstwhile Soviet Union, including the dwellings of millions, which in