PM Modi met Putin, will meet Xi as India walks BRICS tighrope
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit in Kazan on Wednesday. (Image: Reuters)
One down, one to go. Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday afternoon – a 45-minute sit-down at Delhi’s Bharat Mandapam, the venue for this weekend’s BRICS summit. On Saturday evening – at close on Day 1 of the summit – Modi is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
There will be other meetings too. Several of them, in fact. Reports indicate the Prime Minister, starting from 10 am, will meet the leaders of Ethiopia, Malaysia, Abu Dhabi, and Vietnam. But the bilateral with Xi is arguably the most important.
Meetings between an Indian prime minister and a Chinese president are infrequent, at best, and come with layers and decades of geopolitical, economic, and military tension to unpack. That’s no different this time, on Xi’s first visit in seven years.
What will be different is a trade deficit that has ballooned since 2019 – from roughly $11 billion in China’s favour then to over $112 billion now, still in its favour. A chunk of the Modi-Xi talks will certainly focus on that.
Indeed, sources told the Express a ‘strategic economic dialogue’ will address this and related issues, including Indian companies’ access to Chinese markets. The two are also expected to review recent talks in Beijing on the contentious border issue.
Modi-Putin bilateral
In their meeting Modi and Putin discussed defence and energy ties, and the push to lift bilateral trade to the $100 billion-by-2030 target. Putin offered insight into that meeting at a BRICS event that evening; Russia and its partners, he said, are ‘ready to contribute to world energy and food security’ and to building ‘reliable logistics routes, like the Arctic Transport Corridor’.
His remarks – specifically ‘reliable logistics routes’ – were seen as a reminder the United States’ war on Iran, a BRICS member-country, remains resolved and the consequent partial closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz has disrupted supply chains, sent fuel prices soaring, and triggered cost-of-living crises worldwide.
India and Russia reviewed defence files, including possible upgrades to the BrahMos missile system, remaining S-400 deliveries, and a potential Su-57 fighter supply, signalling Moscow’s continued role as Delhi’s top defence partner.
Both sides expanded civil nuclear cooperation, discussing additional reactors and broader collaboration in the nuclear fuel cycle and life-cycle support, while sustaining discounted Russian oil flows that underpin India’s energy security.
The leaders reaffirmed the target of lifting bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030, focusing on industrial cooperation, rail, steel, and improving market access for Indian products in Russia.
Modi and Putin shared perspectives on conflicts in West Asia and the Black Sea region, with India raising the safety of Indian seafarers and the impact on maritime trade and sea lanes.
As 2026 chair, India is pushing BRICS toward practical cooperation on trade, finance, energy, critical minerals, and supply chains, rather than an anti-West posture, and seeks Russian backing for that agenda.
Saturday’s Modi–Xi bilateral is the first in India in seven years, marking a high-symbolism test of whether the cautious thaw since Kazan can move beyond border disengagement to broader stabilisation.
The two sides are expected to review recent boundary talks between NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, and endorse advancing discussions on an 'early and substantial harvest' of boundary delimitation and border management.
India will press on the record bilateral trade (about $127.7 billion in FY 2024–25) and the swelling deficit (around $112 billion), seeking fair market access for Indian pharmaceuticals, IT, and agriculture, and more balanced commerce.
The Putin–Xi sequence in 24 hours showcases India’s balancing act: deepening ties with Moscow, testing a fragile reset with Beijing, and refusing to be boxed into either a Western or Sino–Russian camp.
Together, these meetings define how India uses BRICS: to lock in defence and energy security with Russia, nudge China toward border stability and fairer trade, and project Delhi as an indispensable, independent pole in a fragmenting order.
Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 27 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting and writing explainers and analysis on foreign affairs for about 19 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism ‘2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He won the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award, 2023, for the second time for his reporting of the Oct 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury’s special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban’s capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More
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