Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to visit Russia almost immediately after beginning his third term in office sends many diplomatic signals. The core message is that India continues to attach great importance to its ties with Russia, notwithstanding the collapse of Moscow’s ties with the West over the conflict in Ukraine, New Delhi's own increasing closeness to the US, and the importance it attaches to its ties with Western Europe.

We have come under pressure from our Western partners to reduce our ties with Russia, which we have resisted. We have maintained a high-level dialogue with Russia though the practice of annual summits has got disrupted. We have refused to apply Western sanctions though these have hampered our bilateral financial transactions. On energy, we have, in fact, expanded our oil trade with Russia to the point of Russia becoming our largest oil supplier.

The unique feature of our ties with Russia had been these annual summit meetings since the year 2000. The last such summit was in December 2021 when Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to New Delhi. The Covid pandemic and Russia’s pre-occupation with the Ukraine conflict interrupted this practice.

Putin did not attend the G20 summit meeting last year, nor did he attend the G20 summit at Bali either. He has also prevaricated on the question of his attendance at the next G20 summit in Brazil.

Some misgivings in political circles arose because of the delay in resuming the summit meetings, especially with Modi’s highly publicised interactions with President Biden and........

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