Xi, Modi hail Russia ties while meeting Putin at BRICS summit

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi both praised expanding relations with Russia at bilateral meetings with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

Putin is hosting a summit of BRICS countries, the largest gathering of world leaders in Russia since he ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The heads of 32 countries and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are expected to attend the three-day event in the city of Kazan, highlighting the challenge to the West’s efforts to isolate him over the war.

The gathering of the expanded club offers an occasion for a display of unity between the Russian leader and his counterparts at a time when the Kremlin looks to cast Putin as standing up to the West in attempting to reshape the global order.

Xi said during a meeting on the sidelines of the summit that the “deep friendship” between Russia and China won’t change amid the “chaos” in the world. Modi in turn said his recent visits to Russia demonstrate “our close and deepening” relations, according to televised remarks.

Putin also lauded ties with each country, calling Xi his “dear friend” and describing Russian-Chinese cooperation as “wide-ranging,” while touting Moscow’s “strategic partnership” with India at his meeting with Modi.

Xi and Putin earlier met at the July Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Kazakhstan. They also met in Beijing in May during the Russian president’s first foreign visit since his inauguration for a fifth presidential term where they vowed to intensify cooperation against “containment” by the U.S.

The two leaders declared a “no-limits friendship” just weeks before Putin launched his attack on Ukraine, and have met more than 40 times since Xi came to power in 2012.

While Beijing has sought to portray itself as a neutral actor that can help end the conflict, Kyiv’s U.S. and European allies have accused China of serving as an economic lifeline for the Kremlin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Xi and Putin spent a significant amount of time on the topic of Ukraine during their meeting, the Interfax news service reported.

India’s friendship with Russia, which has become a major oil supplier to the south Asian nation, has increasingly irritated U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine continues for the third year. While New Delhi has argued for a peaceful settlement of the conflict, it’s turned into the second-biggest supplier of restricted technologies to Russia, helping to fuel the Kremlin’s war machine.

The U.S.’s ability to pressure India is limited by Washington’s competing strategic priority of nurturing closer ties with the country as a counterweight to China in Asia.

Tuesday’s talks marked the second meeting between Putin and Modi in just over three months. In July, Modi embraced Putin and hailed the Russian leader as a “friend” during a visit to Moscow that coincided with a deadly Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

Despite discomfort in New Delhi over the worst fighting in Europe since World War II, India has avoided censuring Russia for invading Ukraine, abstaining at UN votes on the issue.

“We have been in constant touch regarding the situation between Russia and Ukraine, and as I have said before, we believe that the solution to these issues should be through peaceful means,” Modi said, adding that he and Putin would discuss the conflict at their meeting. “We support the resumption of peace and stability as soon as possible.”

India’s government has been discussing a long-term crude-supply deal with Russia. Oil Minister Hardeep Puri told reporters Tuesday that Modi will have very fruitful meetings in Moscow but declined to comment on what was expected on the energy front.

The summit hosted by Russia is the first since the group agreed to extend membership to six additional nations at last year’s summit in South Africa. But Argentina pulled out under its new President Javier Milei, and Saudi Arabia has remained non-committal.

Putin also met with his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, and is scheduled to sit down with Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi later Tuesday. The Russian leader is due to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday. Modi was set to meet with Pezeshkian late Tuesday.

—With assistance from Sudhi Ranjan Sen.