PM Modi to host Russian President Vladimir Putin for India-Russia annual summit next year; dates yet to be worked out

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to host Russian President Vladimir Putin for the India-Russia annual summit in New Delhi next year.

Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said that New Delhi and Moscow would soon finalise the dates of the Russian President’s visit to India.

Modi held the 22nd India-Russia annual summit with Putin during his visit to Moscow in July. The two leaders had held the 21st annual summit when Modi had hosted Putin in New Delhi on December 6, 2021, just a few weeks before Russia launched its “special military operations” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The annual India-Russia summit could not be held in 2022 and 2023. Modi, however, had a meeting with Putin on the sideline of the SCO summit at Samarkand in Uzbekistan in September 2022 – the first in-person meeting they had after Russia sent its soldiers to Ukraine. Modi had then told Putin that it was not the era of war, and that dialogue and diplomacy should be the only means to resolve any conflict.

Modi and Putin also had a bilateral meeting on the sideline of the BRICS summit in October.