Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit India? Dates to be announced soon

Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to visit visit India soon, the Kremlin press secretary said on Tuesday, November 19. Although Vladimir Putin's visit to India is confirmed, the exact dates are yet to be finalised. “We are working on the dates,” CNNNews18 quoted Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov as saying.

This will mark Vladimir Putin's first visit to India since Russia launched a war on neighbouring Ukraine in 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin last visited India on December 6, 2021, when he attended the 21st India-Russia Annual Summit in New Delhi alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The announcement of Vladimir Putin's India visit has come less than a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Russia in October 2024 to attend the 16th BRICS Summit, themed “Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security,” being held in Kazan.

The leaders of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries met for the first time in St Petersburg in Russia in 2006. After a series of high-level meetings, the first BRIC summit was held in Russia's Yekaterinburg in 2009.

BRIC group was renamed as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) after South Africa was accepted as a full member at the BRIC Foreign Ministers' meeting in New York in September 2010.

PM Narendra Modi invited the Russian President to visit India when the two leaders held summit talks in Moscow in July. Earlier Tuesday, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov in a video interaction with senior Indian Editors referred to the strong bilateral relationship between India and Russia, and added Vladimir Putin's visit is on the cards. He did not give any specific dates or make a definitive announcement of the visit.

“We are looking forward to the visit. The dates will be mutually worked out soon,” Peskov said.

(With agency inputs)