Pardon my silly US lack of knowledge

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India%E2%80%93Russia_relations

I, as an American, was unaware of Russian-Indian relations until that visit.

This is also the problem with Ukraine. NATO members may like Ukraine and India for being democracies, but that's not worth much if they won't step up to defend when those democracies are under attack.

I think the US, EU or NATO should form a broader alliance that extends this mutual defense to all democracies, at least when under attack by dictatorships. Not doing so gives dictatorships a free reign to attack democracies just outside NATO's borders, as we're seeing with Ukraine.

And I'm mentioning the EU because I think being a democracy should also automatically come with beneficial free trade agreements.

We like to talk much about how democracy is better, but if we leave struggling democracies to fend for themselves, democracy will always be under attack. I think that's a much better idea than allying with autocracies, as the US certainly has done way too often in the past.

Well, over the last twenty years it's arguably been democracies doing the attacks, to be fair...

Maybe it would make more sense to rebuild supranational institutions that, y'know, actually make people figure things out. The UN Security Council has been effectively sidestepped since 2001, to the irritation of many. We need to rebuild mechanisms to resolve problems.

No matter how the war turns out, Russia will be significantly weakened. The isolation from the West will force it into a closer and subservient relationship with China. There is no way Russia will take India's side against China.

Even US understands it - https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1497314441141972993?t=X8Yc55p...

The US supplying military aid, specifically F-16s, to Pakistan has been the biggest issue for a US/India strategic relationship.