When President Trump signed new sanctions legislation targeting Russia, the move rippled outward almost immediately, drawing senior American and Indian diplomats into urgent conversation. India, a nation that has long prided itself on strategic autonomy, now finds itself caught between two relationships it cannot afford to lose — one with Washington, which anchors its regional ambitions, and one with Moscow, which supplies its weapons and energy. These talks represent the quiet, difficult work of great-power diplomacy: not choosing sides, but searching for the space between them.