Modi, Putin to discuss ‘special and privileged partnership’ in Delhi next week

NEW DELHI: Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit India next week, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday, as the two countries seek to strengthen ties amid the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s tariff war.

Putin, who is scheduled to visit New Delhi on Dec. 4 and 5, will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and participate in the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit, a key platform of their Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.

“The forthcoming state visit will provide an opportunity for the leadership of India and Russia to review progress in bilateral relations, set the vision for strengthening the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership and exchange views on regional and global issues of mutual interest,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

Putin last visited India in 2021, when he attended that year’s India-Russia Annual Summit, which the two countries have hosted alternately since 2000. That trip took place just a few months before he ordered troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

India has abstained from publicly criticizing Russia over the Ukraine war and did not join the slew of international sanctions slapped on it, despite pressure from Western countries, especially the US.

Prof. Rajan Kumar of the Center for Russian and Central Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University said that Putin’s upcoming visit “sends a very strong message” to the West.

“It also says very clearly … how India thinks of Russia as a very important strategic partner, and it will not follow the policy of sanctions or policy of isolation of the West, so far as Russia is concerned,” he told Arab News.

Putin’s visit next week comes amid India’s uncertain relations with the US, after the Trump administration imposed a 50 percent duty on Indian goods as punishment for buying Russian oil.

The White House has alleged that New Delhi’s oil purchases were indirectly helping to fund Moscow’s war in Ukraine, though Trump said earlier this month that Washington and Delhi were “pretty close” to a trade deal that is expected to see the tariff rate on Indian goods reduced.

Nandan Unnikrishnan, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, says Trump’s punitive tariffs are a way to pressure India to purchase more oil from the US and to sign a bilateral deal that benefits Washington.

“Third, is the fact that he wants to diminish, in some way, the (India-Russia) relationship,” he told Arab News.

New Delhi’s ties with Moscow span over seven decades, and the two countries have been exploring ways to deepen their cooperation, especially following a September meeting between Modi and Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization leaders’ summit in China.

As Russia is currently India’s biggest crude oil supplier and the main source of its military hardware, defense and oil trade are going to be a major part of the discussions, said Nandan Unnikrishnan, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.

“Bilateral trade before India started buying Russian oil in 2022 was around $11 to $12 billion a year. Now it is close to $70 (billion), so obviously there will be a serious discussion on how … India’s reduced buying of Russian oil is going to impact bilateral trade.”