PM Modi likely to visit Russia next month

NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi is likely to visit Moscow next month for the India-Russia annual summit, the highest institutionalised dialogue mechanism between the two countries. While an official announcement is awaited, both sides are exploring dates in the second week of July for the proposed day-long visit. July 9 is one of the dates being considered.
If the visit happens, and with no other foreign visit scheduled for the PM in the next few weeks, it may also turn out to be Modi's first bilateral visit since the inauguration of his third consecutive term in office earlier this month.Previously, he has chosen to visit countries in the neighbourhood after assuming office.
The visit will take place days after the SCO summit in Astana, which Modi has decided to skip this time. It will also be his first visit to the country since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Modi, in fact, last visited Russia in 2019. The PM is expected to visit Russia again later this year for the BRICS summit.
While 21 such annual summits have taken place so far alternatively in India and Russia, this will be the first time Modi will travel to Russia for the same since 2019. The summit couldn't take place in 2020 because of Covid-19 but President Vladimir Putin did come the next year for the 21st summit, although only for a few hours. Modi was expected to travel to Russia for the next summit in 2022 but that summit never materialised amid increasing global uncertainty and Russia's preoccupation with the Ukraine war.
A Putin aide was quoted as saying Tuesday preparations are on for the visit.
While the leaders did meet on the margins of the SCO summit in Samarkand in 2022, where Modi told Putin this isn't the era of war, the upcoming meeting under the annual summit mechanism will provide them an opportunity to undertake the most comprehensive review of bilateral relations - spanning across energy, defence, trade, nuclear cooperation, defence and space - since Putin's visit to India in 2021.
There has been a dramatic growth in energy ties between the two countries since the outbreak of the war, mainly because of India's decision to ramp up oil imports from Russia despite the objections raised initially by the West. India and China remain the only major countries to have not explicitly condemned Russia for its actions in Ukraine.
Like in the 2021 summit, the meeting on this occasion too will witness the signing of several agreements and MoUs. Russia said last week it has finalised a draft logistics agreement for intensifying military exchanges but India has remained silent on the issue. A Kremlin spokesman had said in March Modi had an open invitation to visit Russia and that Moscow in any case was expecting bilateral talks in the first half of the year on the margins of a multilateral event. There were concerns that Russia may have reservations about Modi not himself attending the SCO summit but the standalone visit to Moscow will likely take care of that.