Putin to visit India on Dec 4-5 for annual India-Russia summit

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin will be on a state visit to New Delhi on December 4-5 for the 23rd annual India-Russia summit. He will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Russia last year for the annual summit, the external affairs ministry announced on Friday.

- BY S VENKAT NARAYAN

Narendra Modi last met Vladimir Putin in Tianjin on 1 September 2025 on the side-lines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in China.

The practice of annual Indo-Russian bilateral summits began in the year 2000 when both sides signed the Declaration on the India-Russia Strategic Partnership. In 2000 too, Putin was Russia's President while Atal Behari Vajpayee of the Bharatiya Janata Party was Indian Prime Minister.

The annual bilateral summits are held alternately in New Delhi and Moscow.

Indian foreign minister Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met Putin earlier this month ahead of the latter's visit to India.

Putin’s state visit will provide the two sides an opportunity to review bilateral ties against the backdrop of US pressure to reduce purchases of Russian energy and military hardware.

This will be Putin’s first visit to India since the start of the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, and several big-ticket deals and understandings are expected to be unveiled during the summit on December 5, people familiar with the matter said. Putin last travelled to India in 2021 for the annual summit.