India and Russia have “almost” finalised the date for President Vladimir Putin’s visit to India for the annual India-Russia summit, said NSA Ajit Doval during his visit to Moscow. Both sides had said last year Putin would travel to India in 2025 for the annual summit but they have not been able to confirm a date till now for what would be the president’s first visit to India since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Official sources later said no specific time or date had been indicated by the NSA in his engagements. They also denied Russian media reports that Putin is coming in Aug. The leaders are likely to meet in any case this month on the margins of the SCO summit in Tianjin. Doval also called on Putin during his visit.“We are very excited to learn about the visit of President Putin to India. I think the dates are almost finalised. Summit-level meetings have always been watershed points that have given direction to the relationship,” said Doval in a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu in which they discussed energy and defence cooperation. Underscoring time-tested ties with India, the Russian official said Moscow is ready to work with India to form a just and sustainable world order and ensure the supremacy of international law.Putin’s visit will also follow a US-India trade war that has been exacerbated further by US President Trump’s efforts to force India to cut down energy and defence imports from Russia. With the Kremlin confirming that Putin and Trump are likely to meet in the “coming days”, India is hoping Trump would be successful in brokering a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire that would take care also of some of the sticking points in India’s ties with the US. Doval was briefed about US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s talks with Putin that led to the announcement about a Trump-Putin meeting. EAM S Jaishankar is also scheduled to travel to Moscow soon.Doval expressed hope that the Modi-Putin summit would provide new directions for development of bilateral ties and produce a “tangible and substantial” outcome. Doval further said that under prevailing global uncertainties, the India-Russia old strategic and privileged partnership has got a very special role to play. He also thanked Russia for support after the Pahalgam terror attack. Shoigu was quoted as saying that for Moscow, the most important thing is to comprehensively strengthen the special privileged strategic partnership with India, which is based on “mutual respect, trust, equal consideration of each other’s interests, and the desire to promote a unifying agenda”.
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