Russia, India to sign labour mobility pact during Putin's visit in December

India and Russia are preparing to sign a bilateral labour mobility agreement during President Vladimir Putin’s visit to New Delhi in early December — a deal intended to formalise legal migration, expand employment for Indian workers and ensure protections for those already employed in Russia’s increasingly labour-hungry industries.

Moscow, struggling with a depleted workforce after two years of war in Ukraine, is facing an acute shortage of skilled and semi-skilled labour. The proposed accord would create structured pathways for Indian professionals in sectors such as construction, textiles, engineering and electronics, with an estimated 70,000 Indians expected to be officially employed across Russia by the end of the year.

The agreement, Indian officials say, aims to ensure that those jobs come with legal safeguards and transparent recruitment — something both governments now see as essential.

The Moscow-based Indian Business Alliance (IBA), which represents diaspora entrepreneurs and employers, has described the accord as a “strategic milestone” in India–Russia relations. “India has one of the world’s most dynamic and skilled workforces, and Russia is undergoing a major industrial transformation,” said IBA president Sammy Manoj Kotwani. “This agreement creates a win-win opportunity — providing skilled manpower for Russia’s economy while ensuring secure and dignified employment for Indian professionals.”

The deal comes in the shadow of troubling reports that several dozen Indian nationals, lured by fraudulent job offers in Russia, were coerced or misled into joining the Russian military and deployed in the war against Ukraine. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi confirmed that some of these men were indeed serving in the Russian armed forces and sought their “early discharge”.

Moscow, following diplomatic intervention, promised to repatriate those who had been misled. The episode has cast a long shadow over the recruitment of Indian labour for Russia, raising fears that the new mobility agreement must not become a cover for exploitation or, worse, for recruitment into conflict zones.

The IBA has acknowledged these risks and pledged to work with both governments to establish transparent recruitment channels, organise language and orientation programmes for incoming workers, and ensure that employers comply with fair-work and ethical-hiring standards. The alliance also plans to liaise with regional Russian authorities and the Indian embassy to guarantee the welfare of Indian nationals already employed there.

The forthcoming accord mirrors, in many ways, the labour-mobility pact India signed with Israel in 2023, which created a government-to-government system for sending Indian workers to Israel’s construction and caregiving sectors. That agreement was meant to be tightly regulated, with guarantees of equal treatment, housing and social-security rights. But the reality has been more complicated.

When Israel barred nearly 80,000 Palestinian construction workers after the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, its building sites were left paralysed. To fill the gap, Israel turned urgently to India. Tens of thousands of Indian men, many from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, were recruited under the new mobility scheme. The prospect of earning two to three times their home wages proved irresistible.

But human-rights organisations quickly sounded the alarm: Israel’s rush to replace Palestinian workers, they said, risked worsening already harsh labour conditions and exposing migrants to danger in a country at war.

Reports soon emerged of Indian workers facing poor living conditions, erratic safety standards and anxiety over rocket sirens. Labour activists in India criticised the recruitment process itself, noting that many applicants had been allowed to bypass the government’s mandatory 'e-Migrate' system — the key safeguard against fraud and trafficking in overseas employment.

By mid-2024, one Indian construction worker had been killed during a missile strike, and the MEA confirmed it had received complaints from others who claimed they were not given the jobs they had been promised.

The experience has become a cautionary template for policymakers. The Israel programme showed how geopolitical decisions — in that case, the exclusion of Palestinian workers — can transform India’s migrant labour into a geopolitical instrument. The Russia agreement now faces a similar test: how to balance the economic opportunity of exporting skilled manpower with the duty to ensure workers’ safety, dignity and consent.

For Moscow, the attraction is straightforward. Its economy, under sanctions and military mobilisation, needs hands to keep industries running and infrastructure expanding. For India, the deal offers employment opportunities, remittance inflows and a strategic channel of goodwill with one of its oldest partners.

But both sides know that the risks are real. The presence of Indians in the Russian army, even if inadvertent, has already raised diplomatic alarms. And Russia’s own internal labour systems — stretched by war and sanction — may not always offer the institutional protection that Indian workers will need.

As India prepares to formalise the new framework, officials in New Delhi are said to be studying the Israel precedent closely: how oversight mechanisms can fail, how recruiters can manipulate desperation, and how fragile migrant-safety systems can become in times of war. For all its promise of opportunity, the India–Russia mobility agreement will therefore be watched as much for the protection it delivers as for the jobs it creates.

With PTI inputs