Tribune India reported that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to visit Moscow on 8 July, which was followed by the Kremlin confirming that the details are being worked out and will be announced later. It should therefore be taken for granted that he’ll likely meet with President Putin sometime soon, hence the relevance in forecasting what these two leaders will discuss. These are the top five subjects that are expected to figure most prominently on their agenda:
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1. Grand Strategy
Prime Minister Modi’s visit is taking place as India and Russia recalibrate their ties with the US and China respectively, with the first pair’s being newly troubled while the second’s remain strong but are now less likely to become lopsided in Beijing’s favor, which readers can learn more about here and here. Russia and India are the drivers of tri-multipolarity processes, which keep the return of Sino-US bi-multipolarity at bay, so their leaders are expected to prioritize the closer coordination of their grand strategies.
2. Military Cooperation
Russia’s approval of the long-negotiated “Joint Military Deployment” pact with India, which is essentially a military logistics agreement of the sort that this South Asian state already has with the US and others, represents a milestone in their relations and will certainly be discussed during their leaders’ talks. So too will traditional military-technical ties like Indian arms imports and more joint production on its territory, as well as ways in which the promised export of equipment like the S-400s can realistically be sped up.
3. Energy & Investments
The next priority issue is maintaining India’s gargantuan imports of Russian energy and ensuring that its partner’s rupee stockpile is strategically reinvested in the most promising ways. To that end, long-term price and supply agreements might be agreed upon (even if only informally), while a list of the best Indian companies for Russia to invest in could be passed between their leaders. The purpose behind this aspect of their talks would be to ensure that the positive economic trends in their ties remain on track.
4. Optimizing Connectivity
The aforementioned Indian energy imports and Russian rupee reinvestments are a great basis upon which to diversify economic ties but they’ll inevitably require more real-sector trade between them in order to approach anywhere near their full potential. Therein lies the importance of optimizing the North-South Transport Corridor and Eastern Maritime Corridor, ideally through removing red tape and also clinching even a partial free trade pact, both of which will likely be discussed next month too.
5. BRICS Summit
And finally Prime Minister Modi and President Putin will definitely talk about the agenda of October’s BRICS Summit, which could also include the Indian leader politely conveying his displeasure at the scenario of Pakistan possibly being invited to attend “Outreach”/“BRICS Plus”. It’s beyond the scope of this piece to elaborate on why that would risk harming Russian-Indian relations, but this analysis here explains it in detail. Suffice to say, this is an ultra-sensitive and highly important issue for India.
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Prime Minister Modi’s impending trip to Moscow to meet with President Putin will be the Indian leader’s first visit to Russia in half a decade since he attended the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in 2019 as his host’s guest of honor. The world has completely changed since then, and while those two met in India in 2021 and had several meetings on the sidelines of other events, this meeting will give them ample time to synchronize their grand strategies and all that entails in order to accelerate multipolarity.
