‘Not for the ears of others’: Modi, Putin hold 60-min talks in limo

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Monday offered a lift by President Vladimir Putin in his Russian-made Aurus limousine, where they had an hour-long conversation before joining their teams for bilateral talks on the sidelines of the SCO summit here.

The Russian president waited for about 10 minutes for PM Modi to join him before boarding the car. The trip to reach the venue for their meeting lasted about 15 minutes, but they spent another 45 minutes in the car to continue their conversation.

“The two leaders continued their one-to-one dialogue on the way to the hotel, where they were to be joined by members of their teams. However, on reaching the hotel, they did not deboard the Russian President’s limousine and continued their conversation for a further 45 minutes,” Russian national radio station VestiFM reported.

Later, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the two leaders had a tete-a-tete in the car for about an hour.

“He did not want to interrupt the important conversation. But the ‘home walls’ of the car also played a role,” Peskov told a pool TV reporter covering Putin’s visit to China.

“They were at home. That’s the first thing. And secondly, when there’s an important discussion going on, there’s simply no time to interrupt walking and moving to different venues and so on. They felt comfortable there, and that’s why they continued the conversation. But the (bilateral) agenda is really more than intense,” Peskov said.

Modi took to social media to share a photo of himself and the Russian President inside the limousine.

“After the proceedings at the SCO Summit venue, President Putin and I travelled together to the venue of our bilateral meeting. Conversations with him are always insightful,” Modi said.

Experts in Moscow, on the condition of anonymity, said Putin’s presidential limousine is well protected from eavesdropping, and that may be the reason the two leaders were discussing highly sensitive bilateral issues.

They say perhaps this was the most important confidential conversation between Modi and Putin during which they probably discussed issues “not for the ears of others”.