Jaishankar to visit Russia ahead of PM-Putin meet

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is scheduled to visit Russia on August 20-21 to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

This will be the second high-profile visit from India to Russia after that of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, who was in Russia last week.

Sources confirmed Jaishankar’s visit to Russia. The visit by Doval and the planned visit by Jaishankar are aimed at setting the stage for the annual leaders’ summit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to visit India later this year to hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two sides are expected to give a push to their long-standing ties.

Deputy spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry Aleksey Fadeyev said in Moscow that the heads of the two countries’ foreign offices would discuss the “most important issues of the bilateral agenda”.

Jaishankar is likely to call on Putin, besides holding wide-ranging talks with Foreign Minister Lavrov. The minister is also expected to co-chair the 26th session of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic, Scientific-Technological and Cultural Cooperation.

The Russian delegation at the dialogue is likely to be led by First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov.

India’s continued energy procurement from Russia is likely to figure in Jaishankar’s meetings with Russian leaders in Moscow.

India is looking at getting crude oil supplies from Russia at even lower rates. The Russian crude oil price is capped at $60 a barrel since December 2022. The decision was taken by the Group of Seven (G7) nations. The cap faced criticism for being largely ineffective in achieving its intended impact.

Last month, the European Union lowered the oil price cap for buying Russian crude oil from the existing $60. New Delhi is the second-largest purchaser of Russian oil, which is nearly 42 per cent of India’s total oil imports.

The Modi government has so far shown no intention of scaling back crude oil imports from Russia despite Trump’s mounting pressure.

The Ministry of External Affairs had last week said action by the US was “unjustified and unreasonable”.

Despite the US having imposed punitive tariffs, India and Russia last week discussed military cooperation, besides manufacturing of civilian aircraft and metallurgy — the science of merging different metals — needed to make guns, aircraft parts and engines.

The discussion was part of Doval’s meeting with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister on August 8.

New Delhi’s war machine is majorly parented from Russia and includes large fleets of fighter jets, tanks, rifles, helicopters, the S-400 air defence system, besides partnership for the BrahMos missile, which proved its efficacy during Operation Sindoor against Pakistan.

Modi and Putin spoke over the phone on August 8 and re-affirmed their commitment to “deepen” the strategic partnership between the two countries.