Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, on October 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

India supports restoration of peace between Ukraine and Russia and is committed to providing “all possible assistance” to end the crisis, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday (October 22, 2024) during a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Mr. Modi took part in the bilateral meeting soon after reaching Kazan where Russia is hosting the 16th BRICS summit in the backdrop of the continued conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine. Mr. Modi also met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and called for the de-escalation of tension in the West Asian region.

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“We have been in continuous contact over the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. As I have said before, we continue to believe that these disputes should be resolved through peaceful means. We support restoration of peace and stability as soon as possible. Our efforts prioritise humanity. India is ready to provide all possible assistance in the upcoming period,” said Mr. Modi in his opening remarks. The Prime Minister’s participation in the BRICS events in Kazan comes months after he travelled to Moscow for the annual India-Russia summit in July.

Earlier, Mr. Modi was received by Rustam Minnikhanov, head of the Republic of Tatarstan and given a traditional Tatar welcome at Kazan, which is the largest city and the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan. He was driven to the bilateral meeting with Mr. Putin in an Aurus car.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press briefing that the two sides also discussed the early release of Indian nationals who had ended up fighting for the Russian military on the Ukraine front, after being duped by unscrupulous foreign employment agents. “Currently the embassy is pursuing around twenty cases with the Russian side and we very much hope that all of these individuals can be released at an early date and repatriated to India,” said Mr. Misri.

Mr. Misri announced that the two sides will hold the 25th session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on trade, technical and cultural cooperation in November in New Delhi and that India will soon be opening two new consulates in Kazan and in Yekaterinburg.

India-Iran talks

In his meeting with the new Iranian President, Mr. Modi discussed the Chabahar port, the North-South Transport Corridor and the situation in Afghanistan. “The Prime Minister expressed his deep concern over the escalating conflict and reiterated India’s call for the protection of civilians and emphasised the need for dialogue and diplomacy,” said Mr. Misri.

The BRICS summit in Kazan is the first occasion when the grouping will convene in its expanded shape that it acquired after the Johannesburg summit in 2023. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE were cleared to join BRICS in Johannesburg and the process of new members’ admission was completed on January 1, 2024.

The summit, which will be held on Wednesday, under the chairship of Russia has also drawn global attention as it is being interpreted as a sign of Russia’s leading position despite the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

Ahead of the BRICS summit, Mr. Putin hosted the President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on October 21 in the presidential residence of Novo-Ogaryovo in Moscow where he had hosted Mr. Modi during the India-Russia annual summit in July.

Dmitry Peskov, Press Secretary for the Russian President, said the Putin-Al Nahyan meeting was aimed at discussing “serious issues calmly”. Among other leaders who arrived in Kazan were Chinese President Xi Jinping, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, Prime Minister of Vietnam Pham Minh Chinh and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Md Jashim Uddin, the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh, is also being hosted at Kazan.

There were many firsts to PM Modi’s two day visit to Russia, his first since the invasion of Ukraine, and his first destination for a bilateral summit in his 3rd tenure in office, the first time they held the Annual Summit since 2021, and the first time an Indian leader was awarded Russia’s . While officials billed it as a purely bilateral visit, it won attention internationally, and censure from western capitals

 To start, let’s just tell you what agreements were announced 

1. .Putin accepted Modi’s request to issue military discharges for all Indian’s misled into becoming military recruits on the Russian warfront. The Hindu had first reported on the plight of Indian soldiers

2. A 81-point joint statement that included convergent positions on Ukraine and Gaza

3. Joint Vision Statement on the development of strategic areas of Russia-India economic cooperation for the period up to 2030- and $100 billion target for trade by 2030

4. An agreement to facilitate trade and investment in Russia’s Far East, which includes the Chennai-Vladivostok maritime corridor

5. India will open 2 new consulates in Kazan and Yekaterinburg

I also spoke to several Indian businessmen on how the PM’s visit will help resolve their big issues of trade, payments, banking and sanctions.

So why were western countries , mainly US and Ukraine upset by the visit

1. The Modi-Putin meeting just hours after Russia rained 40plus missiles on Ukraine, including on a children’s hospital drew this tweet from Ukraine President Zelenskyy

2. Formal talks came on a day Washington began a special NATO summit with western allies and Zelenskyy, and the Modi visit spiked its plans to show Putin had been isolated by their solidarity

3. PM Modi spoke about the need for peace, decried civilian losses, but did not criticise Mr. Putin for the invasion of Ukraine

4. The India Russia Joint Statement issued spoke of the conflict “around Ukraine”, not in Ukraine, accepting Russian territorial claims

5. The US State Department said it had raised concerns with New Delhi on its ties with Russia, and US Ambassador Eric Garcetti, in particularly blunt comments this week, said that in conflict, “theres no such thing as Strategic Autonomy”

What then is India’s Message from Moscow

 1.     Bilateral ties, that have been flagging for some years, appear to have been set back on track with the Modi-Putin meeting. It is significant the PM Modi made the visit to Moscow for the talks, and spent 8-9 hours with President Putin rather than have meetings at the SCO or on the sidelines of the upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan.

2.     Economic issues and opportunities arising from the Ukraine conflict, whether it is on payment mechanisms to avoid sanctions, new connectivity routes or on more predictable discounted oil supplies are a major priority

3.     India is concerned about Russia-China ties coming closer- but while the West may want China to pull away from Russia, India wants Russia to feel less dependent on China

4.     India will continue to walk its own road on the Ukraine conflict- backing peace, but not criticizing Russia or joining the western coalition in any manner

5.     India may not be seeking a role in mediation in the conflict, but it remains one of the few countries, like Hungary, Turkey etc that can speak with both Putin and Zelenskyy and the West

WV Take: The resumption of India-Russia annual summits after three years is an important inflexion point- and along with bilateral agreements, and the personal Modi-Putin rapport may send the message that New Delhi now believes the conflict in Ukraine has turned an irreversible corner. For Moscow, the big message is that Russia is not isolated, and Putin’s visits to Beijing, Hanoi and Pyongyang as well as visits by the Hungarian PM reinforce that while the western coalition is fiercely with Ukraine, Russia believes it has the global majority. The most important outcome is to watch is if and how this changes the Delhi-Washington relationship, with elections and more turbulence expected.

Script and Presentation: Suhasini Haidar

Production: Gayatri Menon and Shibu Narayan

According to sources, India and Russia will sign “several” documents at the end of the talks on Tuesday, including a comprehensive joint statement, a vision statement, the future course on energy and trade, cooperation on investments in Russia’s Far East and a number of MoUs. The two sides are also discussing India’s desire to open new consulates in Russia, the sources confirmed.

Moscow:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew into Moscow on Monday and warmly hugged President Vladimir Putin on a visit that treads a fine line between maintaining a longstanding relationship with Moscow and courting closer Western security ties.

The visit is PM Modi’s first since Russia launched its campaign in Ukraine and since he was returned to power last month as leader of the world’s most populous country.

After meeting Moscow’s Indian community, PM Modi had an informal meeting with President Putin at his residence at Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow, where the leaders drank tea on a terrace, rode in a golf cart together, and visited stables.

PM Modi told Putin it was a “moment of joy” to visit and thanked him for planning “that we chit-chat here this evening”.

“Looking forward to our talks tomorrow as well, which will surely go a long way in further cementing the bonds of friendship between India and Russia,” PM Modi later wrote on X, posting a photo of the leaders hugging.

Moscow remains a key supplier of cut-price oil and weapons to India, but the Kremlin’s isolation from the West and blooming friendship with Beijing have impacted its time-honoured partnership with New Delhi.

PM Modi last visited Russia in 2019 and hosted Putin in New Delhi two years later, weeks before Russia began its offensive against Ukraine.

Russia’s fight with Ukraine has also had a human cost for India.

New Delhi said in February that it was pushing the Kremlin to send back some of its citizens who had signed up for “support jobs” with the Russian military, following reports some were killed after being forced to fight in Ukraine.

Moscow’s deepening ties with China have also been a cause for concern.

Washington and the European Union accuse China of selling components and equipment that have strengthened Russia’s military industry — allegations that Beijing denies.

China and India are intense rivals competing for strategic influence across South Asia.

India is part of the so-called Quad grouping with the US, Japan, and Australia that positions itself against China’s growing assertiveness in the Asia-Pacific region.

Oil and arms

New Delhi and the Kremlin have maintained a close relationship since the Cold War, and Russia was for a long time India’s largest arms supplier.

But Ukraine has stretched Russia’s arms supplies thin, forcing India to eye other sources for weapons — including by growing its own defence industry.

Russia’s share of Indian imports of arms has shrunk considerably in recent years, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

At the same time, India has become a major buyer of Russian oil, providing a much-needed export market for Moscow after it was cut off from traditional buyers in Europe.

That has drastically reshaped energy ties, with India saving itself billions of dollars.

India’s month-on-month imports of Russian crude “increased by eight percent in May, to the highest levels since July 2023”, according to commodity tracking data compiled by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

But this has also resulted in India’s trade deficit with Russia rising to a little over $57 billion in the past financial year.

From Russia, PM Modi will travel to Vienna for the first visit to the Austrian capital by an Indian leader since Indira Gandhi in 1983.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)