Putin and Iranian president arrive in India for summit focusing on war

Vladimir Putin has arrived in India for talks ahead of an 11-member BRICS summit dominated by economic challenges and conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine, with the leaders of China and Iran set to attend.

War, global trade turbulence and oil are expected on the agenda at the two-day annual summit which opens on Saturday, when Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to arrive.

It will be Mr Xi's first visit to India since 2019, marking the biggest step yet in a cautious thaw between the rival neighbours.

The visit comes six years after a deadly military clash between China and India along their disputed Himalayan border.

Ties between both nuclear-armed China and India have warmed in recent months, with flights, visas and high-level contacts gradually being restored.

But deep mistrust remains within their contested frontier, a widening trade deficit and strategic rivalry still complicating the relationship.

"One should engage in debate and friendship only with the virtuous, and nothing whatsoever with the unvirtuous," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a post on social media on Friday, welcome arriving leaders.

Mr Modi is due to hold talks later on Friday with Mr Putin, who last visited India in December 2025. Moscow is one of New Delhi's most important strategic partners. 

India has navigated the energy crisis caused by the Iran war in part by turning to Russia, one of its most important relationships and most controversial fuel supplier in recent years, as the war in Ukraine drags on.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also expected on Friday, and is also set to hold talks with Mr Modi.

Gulf conflict is the 'fault line'

The BRICS summit was created in 2009 as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions typically dominated by Western powers.

It has since expanded to include Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three countries with sharply differing positions on the war launched by the United States and Israel in February.

"The Gulf conflict is going to be the central fault line this time during the BRICS summit," said Harsh V Pant, a professor of international relations and vice president of India's Observer Research Foundation.

"What was seen until last year as an achievement, the expansion of BRICS, today looks like a big constraint on BRICS."

It will be Mr Pezeshkian's first visit to India as Iranian president, and will put the Middle East conflict firmly in conversations.

Econimist Shilan Shah said the war in Iran would provide a stern test of the expanded group's cohesion. 

Mr Shah noted the failure of the BRICS foreign ministers to agree on a joint statement when they met in New Delhi in May.

United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi are all expected to be in attendance.

India maintains cordial relations with Iran and Israel, but is also careful to strike a delicate balance in its ties with Washington.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited Kyiv this month when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was "grateful to India for its commitment to ending this unjust war".