Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in New Delhi by the end of year. According to sources, Putin will travel to New Delhi but no dates have been finalised yet. Meanwhile PM Modi and Putin will also hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tianjin scheduled at the end of this month.
The Shanghai meeting will follow PM Modi and Putin’s telephonic conversation on Monday where the two leaders discussed the Russian president’s Alaska meeting with US President Donald Trump. PM Modi called Putin his “friend” and said that India has consistently called for a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict and supported all efforts in this regard.
“Thank my friend, President Putin, for his phone call and for sharing insights on his recent meeting with President Trump in Alaska. India has consistently called for a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict and supports all efforts in this regard. I look forward to our continued exchanges in the days to come,” PM Modi wrote on X
This is the second conversation between PM Modi and the Russian President in a fortnight. This and ongoing border talks with China are indicative of the pace of consultations between India and two key foreign powers amid the trade tariff’ tensions with the US.
Meanwhile, Russia on Wednesday dismissed the US tariffs on India over its procurement of Russian crude oil as “unjustified and unilateral”, stressing that Moscow and New Delhi would continue energy cooperation “notwithstanding external pressure”.
Deputy chief of mission Roman Babushkin said the US has “weaponised the economy” but “friends do not impose sanctions, and Russia will never impose sanctions on India”.
“You will never see sanctions imposed by Russia or within BRICS organisations where we together participate. Non-United Nations sanctions and secondary sanctions are illegal. They just weaponise the economy. Despite the tremendous sanction pressure on Russia, you will see the Russian economy is growing steadily. It means that you cannot exclude from the global economy such a big and important country like Russia with its tremendous energy, industrial and human potential, meaning that sanctions fail and moreover, they hit those who are imposing them,” he was quoted as saying
Trump said the US is set to impose an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian exports on August 27, citing their imports of Russian oil
