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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia from July 8 to 9 where he is expected to meet President Vladimir Putin to have talks on strategic, economic and defence ties between the two countries. This would be Mr. Modi’s first visit to Russia since 2015. This would also mean India and Russia returning the annual bilateral summit format. Since the February 24, 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bilateral summit has not taken place, though both leaders met at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan in 2022. It was at this summit, Mr. Modi said “today’s era must not be of war”, in an indirect reference to the Ukraine war.
Trade and economic ties between Russia and India, particularly in the field of energy, have seen a big jump in recent years. Imports from Russia stood at $61.44 billion in the last financial year, up 33% from the year before. Of this, the lion’s share is crude oil imports, which stood at $46.5 billion, up 49% from $31 billion in the previous year. To put this in the context, India’s crude imports from Russia was just $2.4 billion in 2021-2022, the fiscal year before the Ukraine war began. When Russia came under Western sanctions after the war, it turned to Asian markets with discounted crude, and India and China emerged as top buyers.
While trade and economic ties have improved, there were concerns about a drift in strategic partnership between India and Russia. Earlier, New Delhi had announced that the Prime Minister would skip the SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, which would also be attended by Mr. Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistani Prime Minister Shezbaz Sharif, triggering speculations about the reason behind his absence. But by immediately announcing the Moscow trip, India has sent a clear message that the Ukraine war has not affected India’s strategic partnership with Russia. Earlier in June, Russia had approved a draft agreement on a mutual logistics agreement. “The agreement will simplify military-to-military exchanges for exercises, training, port calls and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) efforts. It is similar to a series of such agreements that India has signed with a number of countries, beginning with the United States in 2016, Dinakar Peri reported.
In the Moscow summit, “talks are expected to focus on the rise in India-Russia trade due to India’s import of oil, smoothening out payment issues arising from Western sanctions, build on previous conversations on the Chennai-Vladivostok maritime route, and conclude the Reciprocal Exchange of Logistics Agreement (RELOS) agreement, that will pave the way for more defence exchanges,” writes Suhasini Haidar in this analysis. By choosing Russia as his first foreign destination for a bilateral visit in his third term, Mr. Modi is sending a clear message to India’s partners in the West that New Delhi intends to continue his current balancing act between Russia and the West.
Death of Sampanthan
Veteran Sri Lankan Tamil leader Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, who dedicated his political life to pursuing a just solution to the island nation’s Tamil question, passed away in Colombo late on Sunday, reports Meera Srinivasan. Sampanthan, who was was 91, was a sitting MP from the eastern Trincomalee district, and the leader of the Tamil National Alliance, the main grouping representing Tamils of Sri Lanka’s war-hit north and east. Since the end of the civil war in 2009, he tirelessly demanded equal rights for Tamils, within a ‘united, undivided, indivisible’ country. Trained as a lawyer, he based his arguments for a political solution on Sri Lanka’s constitutional history and the many promises that the southern Sinhalese establishment made in the past but failed to keep, writes Meera.
Top stories and key issues we are following this week:
- What’s holding up the Teesta treaty? What has the Indian government told Bangladesh? What is the technical team going to look into? Why is Bengal Chief Minister protesting this development? What about the Ganga water sharing agreement? When does it come up for renewal? What is the state of both the rivers? explains Shiv Sahay Singh
- Reasi and the ‘years-old’ issues of cross-border terror: In India’s responses to Pakistan-backed terror, New Delhi needs to sharpen its definition of what is an ‘unacceptable’ terror attack, writes Vivek Katju
- Mass protests in Kenya, in which at least 30 people were shot and killed by police, against an IMF-backed finance Bill that sought to raise taxes on essentials bring into focus, once again, the conditions the multinational lender imposes on poor countries in return for loan assistance, writes G. Sampath
- India must avoid ceding the centre stage in its own region on foreign policy and on Tibet issues, writes Suhasini Haidar
- The far-right AfD leader, Björn Höcke, who stands trial for using Nazi-era slogans, calls for a ‘180-degree turn’ in how Germany remembers its past, including Holocaust, writes Sumeda.
Published - July 01, 2024 04:40 pm IST
