India-Russia Summit: The annual India-Russia summit, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was supposed to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, is unlikely to happen this year due to “scheduling challenges,” according to sources.

“Reports that Prime Minister Modi will not meet with Putin owing to the nuclear danger are false.” The meeting will not take place owing to schedule conflicts, according to ANI. The annual summit between the Indian Prime Minister and the Russian President is the highest formalised interaction mechanism in the two nations’ strategic alliance.

Several news outlets suspected that the annual in-person conference had been cancelled due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s purported threats to deploy nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict.

“The meeting between New Delhi and Moscow will not take place due to schedule concerns,” according to the sources, who added that the decision had nothing to do with the present Ukraine crisis.

India and Russia have maintained a yearly summit mechanism since 2000. The last annual meeting was held in December 2021 at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi, and Putin attended in person; this year, PM Modi was scheduled to fly to Moscow for the summit.

In-person summits were not held in 2020 because to COVID-19.

First 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in 2021

PM Modi and Putin had their first 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue in 2021, during which they also inked an agreement for the procurement of 6,01,427 AK-203 assault rifles through Indo-Russia Rifles Pvt Ltd under the military-technical cooperation arrangement for 2021-31.

The India-Russia 2+2 Dialogue marked the first 2+2 meeting between the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries.

Bilateral meeting

In September this year on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand when the two leaders met for a bilateral meeting, PM Modi told President Putin that this was “not an era of war.” This statement by PM Modi also was cited in the G20 Summit in Indonesia’s Bali.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Moscow in November and met with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, during which he expressed concern about the implications of the Ukraine crisis, which have damaged energy and food security around the world.