Russian President Vladimir Putin will hold summit talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Friday, aiming to boost trade with the top buyer of Russia's arms and seaborne oil as Western sanctions squeeze their decades-old ties.
Putin is on his first visit to India in four years at a time when New Delhi is engaged in talks with the US for a trade deal to cut punitive tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump on its goods over India's Russian oil purchases.
Moscow has been India's top arms supplier for decades and has said that it wants to import more Indian goods in an effort to grow trade to $100 billion by 2030 that so far has been skewed in its favour due to New Delhi's energy imports.
Since European countries cut back their reliance on Russian energy after Russia invaded Ukraine nearly four years ago, India has ramped up its purchases of discounted Russian crude.
"India faces a conundrum; by taking steps to strengthen ties with Moscow or Washington, New Delhi risks setting back ties with the other," Michael Kugelman, senior fellow at Washington's Atlantic Council think tank, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine this week.
Modi and Putin are also expected to discuss other topics including labour and civil nuclear energy, with the sides expected to announce new agreements to showcase resilience of their relations.
HUGS AND HANDSHAKES
The Indian leader received Putin with a hug and handshake as he walked down the red carpet after arriving at an airport near New Delhi on Thursday for the two-day visit. Modi later hosted the Russian president for a private dinner at his residence.
A business and government delegation has accompanied Putin for the visit, including his defence minister, Andrei Belousov, who held talks with his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh on Thursday.
Belousov "stated that the Russian defence industry is ready to support India towards becoming self-reliant in the field of defence production," India's defence ministry said after the talks.
Putin arrived in India a day after holding talks with Trump's top envoys on a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, but they did not reach a compromise.
India has resisted condemning Russia over the war and called for peace though dialogue and diplomacy, while saying that its ties with Moscow were being unfairly targeted by Western nations that continue to do business with Moscow when it is in their interest.
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