Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi on Thursday evening to a warm reception, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi breaking protocol to greet him on the tarmac, a gesture reserved for a select few global leaders.
Putin is in India for the 23rd India-Russia annual summit, an alternating fixture between the two nations.
But this year, the visit carries unusual geopolitical weight. It marks only the second time in 2025 that the Russian leader has travelled abroad solely for a bilateral engagement — the first was his August trip to the US to meet President Donald
Trump in pursuit of a potential settlement to the Ukraine conflict.
Modi is the first world leader Putin met after the Russian President’s five-hour negotiations in Moscow on Tuesday with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and the US President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner on the new Ukraine peace plan.
Putin was expected to bring Modi up to speed on the Moscow talks when they sat down to an informal dinner at the Prime Minister’s residence on Thursday night.
Usually, a visiting head of state or government is welcomed at the airport by a designated minister in waiting.
In the case of State visits such as Putin’s, the protocol is for the visiting dignitary to be given a ceremonial reception at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Putin will be given the ceremonial welcome on Friday morning.
Modi has made such exceptions in the past for the two US Presidents to visit India during his premiership — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — French President Emmanuel Macron, then Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina, the Amir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Crown Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
With the India-Russia relationship often described as one of the steadiest in contemporary diplomacy, this routine annual meeting has taken on greater significance.
Both New Delhi and Moscow appear to be sending out strategic signals: India is underscoring its refusal to align unquestioningly with the US and the West, while Putin aims to show he is not isolated on the world stage.
At the same time, Putin is seeking to balance Russia’s ties with China, offering India a partnership of the same “no limits” nature that he claims with Beijing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Russia was “willing to go as far as India is ready”.
For India, the focus of the visit will be on expanding trade and economic ties, while the Russian side said that discussions on the sale of defence platforms would also be on the agenda during Friday’s official engagement.
A big business delegation from Russia is in New Delhi to explore ways of addressing the trade imbalance, which has been further accentuated in recent years by India’s purchase of discounted Russian oil since the Ukraine war began.
The visit’s high-visibility optics were amplified by the arrival of senior Russian officials ahead of Putin. First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and defence minister Andrey Belousov met defence minister Rajnath Singh and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier in the day.
Manturov met Sitharaman with fellow ministers from Moscow and the chairperson of the Central Bank of Russia. They are said to have discussed interbank and credit cooperation, the expansion of the payment infrastructure, and an India-Russia investment protection agreement to replace the one terminated in 2017.
In a post on X about his meeting with his Russian counterpart, Rajnath said: "India is determined for expanding capacity of indigenous defence industry for both local production and exports, under the aegis of ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’. I also laid emphasis on exploring new opportunities for enhancing collaboration between both the counties across niche technologies.”
Putin is expected to address a business meeting in the capital, where the emphasis would be on trying to allay Indian businesses' apprehensions about doing business with the Russians because of Western sanctions.
