Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to travel to India today, the second trip abroad since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, to strengthen military and energy ties with a traditional Moscow ally, which is also claimed by Washington.
The United States, trying to compete with China’s rise to power, has set up the Quad, a security dialogue group, along with India, Japan and Australia.
India was a close ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, a relationship that continues today and is characterized by New Delhi as a “special and privileged strategic partnership”.
“Friendship between India and Russia has stood the test of time,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Putin during a summit in September.
“Symbolic”
This is the Russian president’s second trip abroad since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic and the summit he had in June with his American counterpart Joe Biden in Geneva.
After all, Putin did not attend important meetings, such as the G20, COP26, and recently postponed a visit to China.
The trip to India “is extremely symbolic,” said Nadan Unikrishnan of the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation. “It shows the extent to which they do not want relations to stagnate or slow down because of the Russian side,” he added.
This will be Putin’s first face-to-face meeting with Monti after the conversation they had on the sidelines of the summit of the group of five largest, emerging economies (BRICS) in Brazil in 2019.
The meeting of the two leaders will take place at the same time as the inaugural dialogue between the Foreign and Defense Ministers of India and Russia.
“The leaders will look at the state and prospects of bilateral relations and discuss the means to further strengthen strategic co-operation between the two countries,” the Indian Foreign Ministry said in November.
The Kremlin announced last week that talks with India would focus on defense and energy issues.
The head of the Russian energy company Rosneft, Igor Sehin, will be among the members of the delegation at a time when “a number of important energy agreements” are being negotiated.
Russia has been a major arms exporter to India for years, and is in the process of modernizing its armed forces. One of the most recent contracts India signed in 2018 was for the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft systems worth more than $ 5 billion.
According to some information, deliveries of these systems have already begun.
Due to this market, India is facing sanctions under US law CAATSA, which punishes the purchase of Russian weapons systems.
The State Department said last week that it had not made any decision on India.
SOURCE: AMPE
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