Modi, Putin Agree to Strengthen India-Russia Strategic Partnership Ahead of Crucial BRICS Summit
By Shahnoor Saqib — SCN NEWS
NEW DELHI — Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Friday to further strengthen one of Asia's most durable strategic partnerships, putting energy, defence and expanding economic cooperation at the center of talks in New Delhi just a day before leaders of the enlarged BRICS grouping gather against the backdrop of wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. The meeting demonstrated the resilience of India-Russia relations despite years of Western pressure over Moscow's war in Ukraine, while also exposing the increasingly complex diplomatic position India occupies as it simultaneously maintains important relationships with Russia, the United States, Gulf Arab states, Iran and Israel.
India's foreign ministry said Modi and Putin discussed the broad India-Russia "Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership" and exchanged views on conflicts in West Asia and the Black Sea region, particularly their effects on maritime trade and the safety of Indian seafarers. Modi reiterated India's position that conflicts should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy and said New Delhi remained ready to assist peace efforts. The two leaders agreed to remain engaged in further strengthening bilateral relations, extending cooperation that already spans energy, defence, trade, technology, space and people-to-people ties.
The meeting was their second in less than two weeks, following talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek at the end of August. That frequency is significant as India prepares to host the BRICS Leaders' Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian among the leaders due to participate. BRICS has expanded substantially beyond its original five members, increasing its economic and demographic weight but also bringing together governments with sharply different interests and relationships with Washington, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran.
Energy remains the most consequential economic pillar of the India-Russia relationship. India and China became major buyers of Russian crude after Western governments imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, while New Delhi has consistently argued that a country of India's population and economic scale must secure affordable and reliable energy supplies. Rather than declining in 2026, India's dependence on Russian crude increased as conflict disrupted Middle Eastern supply routes, with Russia's share of Indian crude imports reaching a record 51% in July, according to Reuters.
That figure gives Friday's meeting a significance extending well beyond diplomatic symbolism. India is attempting to protect energy security at a time when conflicts in both the Middle East and the Black Sea have disrupted shipping, pushed up oil-market risks and complicated trade routes on which the world's most populous country depends. New Delhi has resisted demands that it abandon Russian energy, arguing that trade in oil, metals and fertilisers should not be treated as a substitute for diplomatic efforts to end conflicts, even as its Russian purchases remain a source of friction with Western governments.
The economic relationship is also expanding beyond hydrocarbons. India and Russia have set a target of increasing bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030, compared with nearly $70 billion in the 2024-25 financial year. Modi and Putin visited an India-Russia industrial exhibition on Friday showcasing Russian companies working across artificial intelligence, aviation, space, nuclear science, heavy engineering, mining and banking, illustrating an effort by both governments to broaden a relationship that has become heavily weighted toward Russian energy exports.
Critical minerals and rare earths are emerging as another strategically important area. Russian officials said ahead of the summit that Moscow and New Delhi were discussing cooperation in rare-earth exploration, while Indian officials have identified Russia as a potentially important long-term partner for minerals that India lacks domestically. The two countries had already committed at their December 2025 annual summit to deepen cooperation in exploration, processing and recycling technologies for critical minerals and rare earths, linking the partnership to industries ranging from batteries and electronics to defence manufacturing and advanced technology.
For India, access to Russian mineral resources could help diversify supply chains at a time when critical minerals have become an increasingly important component of competition among major economies. New Delhi is already pursuing lithium and other mineral assets abroad and building domestic processing capacity, while Russia possesses significant mineral resources and is seeking new markets and industrial partnerships as Western sanctions constrain parts of its economy. Cooperation across mining, processing and downstream manufacturing could therefore add another strategic layer to a relationship historically dominated by defence and, more recently, oil.
Defence ties remain equally important. India has relied heavily on Russian-origin military equipment for decades even as it diversifies procurement toward the United States, France, Israel and domestic production. Moscow has continued seeking expanded defence-industrial cooperation with New Delhi, and Kremlin officials said before Putin's visit that the potential sale of Russia's Su-57 stealth fighter remained on the bilateral agenda. India and Russia already jointly produce the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, demonstrating how their defence relationship has gradually moved beyond a straightforward buyer-seller model into selected areas of joint production.
The Modi-Putin talks also took place at a difficult moment for BRICS itself. The expanded grouping now represents close to half of the world's population and seeks greater influence for emerging economies in global financial and political institutions, but its members do not constitute a unified geopolitical bloc. The wars involving Ukraine and Iran have exposed competing national interests, while tensions between the United States and China add another layer of pressure to a grouping containing countries that maintain vastly different security and economic relationships with Washington.
BRICS finance ministers and central bank governors nevertheless issued a joint statement ahead of the leaders' summit calling for reforms to global development institutions including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. They argued that emerging and developing economies should receive greater representation in global economic governance and also called for continued work on faster and less expensive cross-border payment systems. India is expected to push further discussion on payment interoperability during the summit, adding financial architecture to an agenda already dominated by trade disruption, energy security and geopolitical conflict.
The New Delhi summit therefore places India at the center of several competing strategic relationships simultaneously. Modi is hosting Putin while maintaining India's expanding partnerships with Western governments, and the presence of Xi and Pezeshkian means leaders representing several of the world's most consequential geopolitical fault lines will be in the same capital. India has sought to describe this approach not as alignment with one camp but as strategic autonomy, allowing New Delhi to cooperate with different powers according to its economic, security and diplomatic interests.
Friday's Modi-Putin meeting provides one of the clearest demonstrations of that policy. Western sanctions have not dismantled the India-Russia relationship; in energy, the economic connection has actually intensified, while both governments are now exploring cooperation in critical minerals, technology and industrial production alongside their longstanding defence ties. At the same time, Modi continues publicly pressing the case for dialogue and diplomacy in conflicts involving Russia and the Middle East rather than endorsing Moscow's positions.
Putin's visit also gives Moscow an opportunity to demonstrate that its political and economic relationships outside the West remain substantial. Russia has increasingly emphasized BRICS and partnerships across Asia, Africa and the Middle East as Western sanctions have restricted access to traditional markets and financial systems. India, because of the size of its economy, its energy demand and its relationships with both Western and non-Western powers, occupies an especially important position in that strategy.
The relationship is not without structural imbalances. India's surge in Russian oil purchases has contributed to a large trade imbalance in Moscow's favor, while payment mechanisms and the accumulation of Indian rupees by Russian companies have required the two governments to search for practical solutions. Kremlin officials said this week that the rupee issue was gradually being addressed and that roughly 90% of transactions between Russia and BRICS countries were now conducted in national currencies, as Moscow seeks payment channels less vulnerable to Western financial restrictions.
Against that backdrop, the significance of the Modi-Putin meeting lies less in another declaration of longstanding friendship than in how the relationship is changing. Russian oil has become more important to India's energy security, critical minerals are emerging as a new strategic frontier, defence cooperation remains deeply embedded and the two governments are seeking to lift trade toward $100 billion even as geopolitical conflicts complicate India's relations with almost every major power.
As BRICS leaders prepare to meet in New Delhi, India is therefore doing more than hosting an expanding group of emerging economies. It is attempting to demonstrate that it can maintain deep cooperation with Moscow, engage Beijing and Tehran, protect relationships across the Gulf and simultaneously preserve its strategic partnerships with Washington and other Western capitals. The durability and widening scope of the India-Russia partnership make Friday's meeting one of the clearest tests of whether that multi-alignment strategy can continue to function in an increasingly divided international system.