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

In yet another gaffe amid concerns over his re-election bid, US President Joe Biden today mistakenly introduced Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as his Russian rival Vladimir Putin.

“And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” he said, referring to Zelensky while speaking on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in Washington.

Zelensky looked nonplussed, then was seen shaking his head and smiling to himself.

Biden, 81, then quickly corrected himself and said, “President Putin, you’re going to beat President Putin, President Zelensky. I am so focused on beating Putin.”

Zelensky, who had by then recovered from his bafflement, responded by saying, “I am better (than Putin).”

Biden is Blunder King

Watch Zelensky’s reaction when Biden calls him Putin! pic.twitter.com/SlGVFBB9ze

— BALA (@erbmjha) July 12, 2024

“You are a hell of a lot better,” Biden replied before Zelensky began his address.

Shortly afterward, Biden made another blunder when he referred to his deputy, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President” Trump at a high-stakes news conference.

ALSO READ | “Great Job Joe”: Donald Trump Mocks Joe Biden Gaffes

“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there,” he said as he responded to a question from a journalist about his confidence in Indian-origin leader Kamala Harris.

Oh MY GOD.

Now Biden has just referred to Vice president Kamala Harris as VICE PRESIDENT TRUMP.

What the fuck is going on?!

This is actually painful to watch.pic.twitter.com/fHYKtk95BF

— Supertanskiii (@supertanskiii) July 11, 2024

The latest gaffes come amid growing calls for Biden, who is already the oldest person to ever serve as the US president, to step aside.

The calls have grown louder ever since his poor performance against Donald Trump, 78, in a US presidential debate two weeks ago.

Even members of his Democratic Party are concerned about his ability to win the November 5 election.

South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol
| Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. and South Korea signed joint nuclear deterrence guidelines, weeks after North Korea and Russia struck a defense pact that deepened concerns in the region about the North’s growing nuclear threats.

Meeting Thursday on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Washington, President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol commended what they called “the tremendous progress” that their countries’ alliance have made a year after creating a joint Nuclear Consultative Group.

Also Read: Till Russia do us part? NATO at 75, an enduring alliance

Last year, the U.S. and South Korea launched the bilateral consultation body to enhance information-sharing on nuclear and strategic operations. The U.S. will retain the control of its nuclear weapons, and the body’s establishment was meant to ease South Korean worries about North Korean nuclear threats.

The two leaders authorized “the U.S.-ROK Guidelines for Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Operations on the Korean Peninsula” that was signed by their defense officials earlier Thursday, according to South Korea’s presidential office. ROK stands for the Republic of Korea, South Korea’s official name.

“The presidents underscored that the Guidelines document provides a solid foundation for enhancing U.S.-ROK extended deterrence cooperation in an integrated manner,” the joint statement said.

The first such guidelines agreed between the two countries, they’re part of an effort to flesh out a U.S. commitment to defend the South. Washington has long promised to use all its capabilities, including nuclear weapons, to defend Seoul if it is attacked.

The Biden-Yoon statement said that any nuclear attack by North Korea against South Korea will be met with “a swift, overwhelming and decisive response.”

Kim Tae-hyo, a deputy national security director in South Korea, told reporters that the agreement calls for integrating U.S. nuclear assets and South Korean conventional weapons to better respond to North Korean nuclear threats. He said that the two countries will conduct joint military exercises to help implement the deterrence guidelines.

Details of the South Korean-U.S. nuclear deterrence guidelines, which Seoul called confidential, were not available. But North Korea is still expected to respond angrily, as it has previously accused its rivals of using the consultation group to plot a nuclear attack on the North.

North Korea’s developing nuclear arsenal is a major security threat to South Korea, which has no nuclear weapons and largely relies on the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” Some experts and politicians in South Korea have openly questioned the credibility of the U.S. commitment, as recent North Korean weapons tests show the country is getting closer to acquiring long-range nuclear missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

Worries about North Korea have further deepened since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin in June signed a deal requiring each country to provide aid to the other if it is attacked, and vowed to boost other cooperation. Analysts say the accord represents the strongest connection between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.

Washington:

All was going according to plan. President Joe Biden was projecting himself as the leader of the free world as he hosted a NATO summit and then, in a moment, an embarrassing slip of the tongue.

With Biden struggling to convince many Americans that he remains fit for office, NATO leaders have been offering him votes of confidence, however delicately, at least in part out of fear of another Donald Trump presidency. 

Biden was closing out NATO’s three-day 75th-anniversary summit in Washington, vowing forcefully, “Ukraine will prevail” against Russian President Vladimir Putin and hailing the courage of Ukraine’s iconic wartime leader, Voldymyr Zelensky.

Turning to Zelensky in his war fatigues, Joe Biden said, “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.”

Biden quickly corrected himself and Zelensky, a former comedian, promptly made light of the gaffe, saying, “I am better than Putin.”

But the momentary lapse quickly revived memories of his debate two weeks earlier against Trump — he had failed in his own task, to reassure the public he still had his wits.

Biden ‘in charge’

Whether motivated by direct observation, fear of the return of Donald Trump or a simple reluctance to offend their host, no leaders openly questioned the competence of Biden, who at 81 is six years older than the alliance itself.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke to Biden at length at a White House dinner for leaders.

“I saw as always a president who is in charge, clear on the issues he knows well,” Macron said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz similarly said that Biden “showed leadership for our common alliance.”

“Slips of the tongue happen, and if you keep a close enough eye on everyone, you will find enough,” Scholz said.

New UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that senility allegations against Biden were misguided and that the two allies covered wide ground for nearly one hour in the Oval Office, longer than expected.

“We did it at pace. He was on good form,” Starmer, whose Labour Party last week swept out the Conservatives and has no love lost with Trump, told British media before the summit gaffe.

Polish President Andrzej Duda, who had forged close ties with Trump but has appreciated Biden’s support for Ukraine, told reporters: “I talked with President Biden, and there is no doubt that everything is ok.”

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, asked if he had concerns about the United States, said that in democracies there is “always turmoil before elections.”

“I have absolutely no concern about the capacity of the current president of the United States to lead his country and to lead our fight for Ukraine and to lead NATO,” he said.

“The only thing I’m worried about is that the political climate in the United States right now is too toxic, is very polarized, and that doesn’t leave enough room for a civilized and constructive debate” on policy, he told reporters. 

Many NATO leaders privately fear a victory in November of Trump, who has loudly criticized the alliance, with its promise of collective defense, as an unfair burden to the United States.

Trump aides have mused about conditioning aid to Ukraine to force Kyiv to surrender territory and make a quick deal to end the war, which they call a distraction from a larger challenge of China.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, while saying she would not comment on the US election, stressed that the United States and Europe would remain united no matter who wins the election.

“You saved us once,” she said of the United States. “Please stick to that way of working.”

One discordant voice in NATO has been Hungary’s populist prime minister Viktor Orban. 

He traveled to Russia and China, as well as Ukraine, before the NATO summit and, after it is over, was heading to Florida to see Trump.

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

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Joe Biden react as they attend a Ukraine Compact meeting, on the sidelines of the NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, U.S. July 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A defiant Joe Biden insisted Thursday that he will run for another term as U.S. president and beat Donald Trump, as a string of verbal gaffes at a major summit threw a harsh new spotlight on his fitness.

In a high stakes press conference at the end of the NATO summit in Washington, the 81-year-old acknowledged the need to “allay fears” among Democrats but said he was determined not to step aside.

His bid to portray himself as in command was undermined by introducing Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as his Russian foe Vladimir Putin earlier in the day, and then referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” at the news conference.

Mr. Biden’s candidacy has been in crisis since a disastrous debate performance against Mr. Trump two weeks ago renewed concerns around his age — and the rare solo press conference, lasting about an hour, was designed to show he still has what it takes.

“I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again,” Mr. Biden said of Mr. Trump.

Already the oldest president in U.S. history, Mr. Biden said he was “not in this for my legacy” but to “complete the job I started.”

The president has faced a steady drumbeat of Democrats calling for him to abandon his 2024 candidacy, fearing that Mr. Trump is in a position to beat him.

More calls from House representatives came Thursday night after the news conference.

Mr. Biden made clear he supported Ms. Harris — who as vice president would take over from him in the event of an emergency, but is also seen by a growing number of Democrats as a stronger candidate at the top of the ticket.

‘Pace myself’

Amid reports that Mr. Biden’s campaign was quietly testing Ms. Harris’s strength in a theoretical match-up against Mr. Trump, the president said he would not have picked her if “she was not qualified to be president.”

He also denied reports that he needed to go to bed by 8 p.m., a time at which he was still holding his news conference on Thursday.

But after blaming his debate debacle on a mixture of jet lag and a cold he admitted it would be “smarter for me to pace myself a little more.”

He stressed too that neurological exams showed he was in “good shape” and said he would take another if his doctors recommended one, but they hadn’t.

Mr. Biden also fielded a series of foreign and domestic policy questions with detailed if occasionally meandering answers and relatively few slip-ups, though he did mix up Europe and Asia.

With questions swirling about his ability to hold his own against autocratic leaders like Mr. Putin or China’s Xi Jinping, Mr. Biden said he was “ready to deal with them now and three years from now.”

Yet his relatively assured performance failed to stop the bleeding, with three more Democratic lawmakers calling for him to quit the race, bringing the total to 17.

Mr. Trump meanwhile mocked Mr. Biden over his gaffes during the press conference itself.

“Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president… Great job, Joe!” Mr. Trump said on his Truth Social site.

Washington:

US President Joe Biden was “in charge” and on top of matters at a NATO summit with fellow leaders in Washington, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday.

“I was able to talk with President Biden at length yesterday at dinner,” Macron told reporters. “I saw as always a president who is in charge, clear on the issues he knows well.”

The French leader was also asked about a gaffe made by Biden just minutes earlier when he mistakenly introduced Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as his Russian foe Vladimir Putin, before quickly correcting himself.

The blunder intensified concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity after a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump two weeks ago.

“We all slip up sometimes,” Macron said. “It’s happened to me and it could happen again tomorrow. I would ask for your indulgence.”

Macron also said that France will continue to support Ukraine “as long as necessary.”

Asked about recent visits to Russia and China by Viktor Orban, Macron said the Hungarian prime minister did not go there with any “mandate” from the EU.

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

Warsaw:

China is staging army drills with Belarus this week at NATO’s eastern border, in a sign of escalating tensions between Beijing and the US-led defence alliance.

The joint “antiterrorist” exercises on Russian ally Belarus’s soil near the Polish border come as NATO leaders gather for a summit in Washington, with the war in nearby Ukraine high on their agenda.

With relations between NATO on the one hand and China and Russia on the other at a low ebb, analysts believe that Beijing wanted to send the alliance a warning message with the timing of the drills.

Sino-Belarusian exercises have taken place before, but this is the first time since Russia invaded neighbouring Ukraine, a NATO ally, in February 2022.

The exercises began July 8 in Brest, a city right on the border with Poland, according to a statement issued on Wednesday by the Chinese defence ministry.

The statement said the manoeuvres will last until mid-July, but did not give the exact number of Chinese soldiers involved.

Both sides are working to “improve combat techniques and deepen cooperation and communication between the two armies”, the statement added.

Chinese diplomatic officials insisted that the exercises were “not aimed at any country in particular”.

But Poland’s defence ministry slammed the timing of the exercises.

It warned of “the risk of the operations in question being used for disinformation and propaganda purposes… to coincide with the NATO summit”.

However small in scale, the exercises still involve China deploying troops on NATO’s doorstep, and to a country Russia used as a launchpad for its invasion of Ukraine.

And the exercises come as Beijing, one of Moscow’s key partners is also experiencing increasingly tense relations with NATO.

Strategic signal 

Analysts believe that the date and location of the exercises were not chosen by chance, arguing that China wanted to send NATO a message.

“Multilateral exercises are often used to send political signals,” Kelly Grieco of the Stimson Center foreign policy and defence think tank told AFP.

Indeed, she argues that when it comes to military drills, “it’s much more about political signal more than for the exercise itself”.

She points out that China had already carried out anti-terrorism exercises in Belarus four times between 2011 and 2018, but had not done so since.

That they are taking place “that close to the border is part of the signalling” too, she added.

Countries often organise their joint exercises to coincide with developments abroad — not least of them China, added Alice Ekman, senior analyst for Asia at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS).

“In April 2023, the Chinese held exercises with Russia in the East China Sea, close to Japanese islands, on the eve of a trilateral US-Japan-South Korea summit to signal their opposition to such a summit being held,” Ekman told AFP.

Similarly, China staged military manoeuvres in the South China Sea in May 2024 as the US-Japan-Philippines-Australia meeting was in full swing, she added.

As well as moving closer to Russia, China is becoming increasingly hostile to NATO.

It accuses NATO of working to contain China at Washington’s instigation, with Beijing worried about the alliance’s expanding role in the Asia-Pacific region.

Moreover, China has never forgiven the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade by a NATO plane in 1999.

It also believes that the alliance has already overstepped its geographical sphere of influence in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.

NATO is perceived by China as “clearly hostile for historical reasons”, Ekman said.

But those reasons were becoming “increasingly strategic as the threat from China becomes an integral part of the organisation’s strategic thinking”, she added.

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

China’s President Xi Jinping with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at the SCO summit in Astana on July 3.
| Photo Credit: AFP

China is seeking to strengthen its leadership of an expanding bloc of nations it sees as a potential counterweight to the world order led by the United States.

Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) member states met last week in Kazakhstan, with President Xi Jinping calling on strategic ally Russia and other partners to “firmly support each other”.

Founded in 2001 by Beijing and Moscow as an economic and security grouping, it includes India, Pakistan and several Central Asian states. It expanded last year to include Iran and this year welcomed Belarus. The talks in Astana took place ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Washington, where the Western military alliance is marking its 75th anniversary and reaffirming its support for Ukraine. In stark contrast, the SCO’s joint declaration made no mention of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

With China assuming the annual rotating chair of the SCO, analysts expect it will work to integrate the two new members and boost collaboration across its vast remit — bolstering, in turn, its own leadership of the alliance.

“The SCO is increasingly defining itself as an alternative vision for world order, juxtaposed against the traditional postwar order led by the United States and other Western powers,” said Bates Gill, a senior fellow for Asian security at the U.S.-based National Bureau of Asian Research.

The bloc’s expansion to include new members could be seen as echoing China’s and Russia’s repeated calls for their vast region to resist Western influence.

Washington:

New Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised Wednesday to keep up Britain’s steadfast support for Ukraine and gave his blessing for strikes inside Russia with British missiles as he made his international debut at a NATO summit in Washington.

Starmer’s unstinting message of continuity on Ukraine comes as questions grow over Kyiv’s most vital partner, the United States, where presidential contender Donald Trump has mused about cutting a quick deal with Russia.

Days after his Labour Party swept elections and threw out the Conservatives in power for 14 years, Starmer said he had a “very good” meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of NATO’s 75th anniversary summit.

“I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide,” Starmer told reporters.

“We’d been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face to face at the meeting,” said Starmer, who already spoke to Zelensky by telephone after entering Downing Street.

On his flight to Washington, Starmer said that decisions on the use of British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles were for the Ukrainian armed forces to make.

UK military aid is “for defensive purposes but it is for Ukraine to decide how to deploy it for those defensive purposes,” he said.

Britain under three Conservative prime ministers has been among the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in the war, taking the lead in pushing for more advanced military systems and looser restrictions on Kyiv.

US President Joe Biden, who has strongly backed Ukraine but has been careful not to start a direct conflict with Russia, recently made a similar move by letting Ukraine strike Russian offensive positions just across the border with US weapons.

Zelensky hailed the decision on the Storm Shadow missiles, writing on Telegram, “Thank you for your continued support of Ukraine and our people!”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia will take “appropriate measures” in response to Starmer’s decision.

“If it is true, it is certainly another absolutely irresponsible step towards fueling tensions and seriously escalating the situation,” Peskov told reporters.

– ‘Clear-eyed’ on Russia –

Starmer will meet later with Biden at the White House, and spoke with other Western leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron.

Starmer has taken Labour on a more centrist path than his leftist predecessor and, along with his foreign and defense secretaries, all noted in Washington that Britain helped found NATO in 1949 under Labour prime minister Clement Atlee.

Starmer said he hoped the NATO summit would send a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the alliance is “bigger now than it’s ever been, more united than it’s ever been, and absolutely clear-eyed about the threat of Russian aggression.”

A NATO summit in Britain in 2014 set a goal of each ally contributing at least two percent of GDP to defense, a long-running demand of the United States.

Only the United States, Britain and Greece then met the target but since the invasion of Ukraine the number has gone up to 23 members of the 32-nation alliance.

Britain’s new defense secretary, John Healey, called for NATO to consider moving toward a 2.5 percent goal.

The growing threats around the world suggest that “all NATO nations are going to need to do more than simply two percent,” Healey told reporters.

He said, whatever the result of the US election, Washington’s priorities are “increasingly going to shift to the Indo-Pacific.”

“European nations in NATO must do more of the heavy lifting,” Healey said.

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