India
oh-Prakash K.L.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday began a three-day visit to India to attend the BRICS summit and meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to expand bilateral trade, investment and energy cooperation.
Putin is accompanied by a high-level delegation. “We warmly welcome Russian President Vladimir Putin to the 18th BRICS summit. He was received at the airport by Foreign Minister K.V. Singh. India and Russia share multifaceted and long-standing ties based on a special and privileged strategic partnership,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a message on X.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the 18th BRICS Summit hosted by India, where he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to expand bilateral trade, investment and energy cooperation, as well as talks on defence, technology and pharmaceuticals.
This will be Putin’s first personal participation in a BRICS summit outside Russia since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022. The two-day BRICS summit, which begins Saturday in India, is expected to focus on enhancing collective resilience in food, energy, health, disaster risk reduction and critical supply chains, with New Delhi positioning the bloc as an effective anchor for navigating a fragmented geopolitical environment.
The New Delhi summit comes as the global economy grapples with the fallout from the Russia-Ukraine war, the crisis in West Asia, especially the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration’s trade and tariff policies. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung are among the senior leaders those present at the summit.
Putin and Modi are scheduled to hold wide-ranging bilateral talks on Friday afternoon. The meeting is expected to focus on strengthening cooperation in a number of areas, including defence, energy, technology, pharmaceuticals and people-to-people exchanges.