Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend this month’s BRICS summit in Russia, India’s Foreign Ministry said Friday, months after the Indian leader met with President Vladimir Putin in a meeting that drew condemnation from Ukraine.
Modi’s government has longstanding ties with Moscow that have persisted despite India’s attempts to forge closer security partnerships with Washington and other Western allies. The balancing act has seen New Delhi avoid condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and instead attempt to position itself as an intermediary to broker a peaceful resolution to the war.
India’s Foreign Ministry said Modi would be in Russia on Oct. 22 and 23 for the summit, held in the Tatarstan capital of Kazan along the Volga River. It will be his second trip to Russia after a visit to Moscow in July.
During that first trip, Modi embraced Putin, a moment Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized as a “devastating blow to peace.” The following month, Modi visited Kyiv where he called for peace and said that “no problem should be solved on the battlefield.”
Russia is a vital supplier of oil and weapons to India, but Moscow’s isolation from the West and growing ties with Beijing have impacted its partnership with New Delhi. The Ukraine war has forced India to look for other sources of arms instead of Russia, traditionally its biggest provider.
The BRICS group takes its name from the first letters of the five members who joined in 2009 — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The group of countries has since expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, said earlier this month that leaders of 24 countries would be attend the summit in Kazan.
