Expanding ties: Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit India on December 6

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• Nov 27, 2021 | moderator

New Delhi: Russian President Vladimir Putin will be visiting India on December 6 for the 21st annual summit between the leaders of both the countries. Last year due to the Covid pandemic, the summit was not held.

The leaders of both the countries – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin, will touch upon various issues, with specific outcomes expected in expanding ties in the areas of defence, trade and energy.

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Among the issues the leaders will be discussing includes, a framework for military-technical cooperation is to be renewed for the next decade, and a joint commission on technology and science may be announced, news agency PTI reported last week.

Simultaneously, India and Russia will also hold a 2+2 summit that will see the External Affairs and Defence ministers of each country meet their counterparts. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu will visit India for the first 2+2 meeting between the countries.

Mr Lavrov and Mr Shoigu will meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, respectively. Mr Jaishankar and Mr Singh were to travel to Moscow this month but that plan was changed because the winter session of Parliament begins from November 29.

A spokesperson from the Russian embassy in Delhi said the ministers were expected to hold "in-depth discussions on key regional and international issues, including the situation in the Asia-Pacific (Indo-Pacific) region and developments in Afghanistan and Syria".

The spokesperson also said the two sides were expected to exchange views on interaction within the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral.