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Putin visits India amid Ukraine peace push: What’s on the agenda?

Putin visits India amid Ukraine peace push: What’s on the agenda?

New Delhi, India – Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting India starting Thursday for the first time since Moscow’s war on Ukraine broke out more than four years ago, even as a renewed push by the United States to end the conflict appears to have stalled. Putin’s 30-hour speed trip also coincides with a tense turn in relations between Washington and New Delhi, with the US also punishing India with tariffs and a sanctions threat for its strong historic ties with Russia and a surge in its purchase of Russian crude during the Ukraine war. That tension has, in turn, made India’s longstanding balancing act between Russia and the West an even more delicate tightrope walk. Since gaining independence from Britain in 1947, India has tried to avoid getting locked into formal alliances with any superpower, leading the non-aligned movement during the Cold War, even though in reality it drifted closer to the Soviet Union from the 1960s. Since the end of the Cold War, it has deepened strategic and military ties with the US while trying to keep its friendship with Russia afloat. Yet, Russia’s war on Ukraine has challenged that balance – and Putin’s visit could offer signs of how Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi plans to juggle New Delhi’s competing relationships without sacrificing any of them. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence near Moscow, Russia, July 8, 2024 [Sergei Bobylyov/Sputnik/Pool via Reuters] What’s scheduled for Putin? Putin is expected to land on Thursday evening and head for a private dinner with Modi at the prime minister’s residence in the heart of the Indian capital, New Delhi. Advertisement On the morning of Friday, December 5, Putin is scheduled to visit Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace, for a guard of honour and a meeting with India’s ceremonial head of state, Droupadi Murmu. He will then, like all visiting leaders, travel to Raj Ghat, the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi. Then, Putin and Modi will meet at Hyderabad House, a complex that hosts most leadership summits for the latest chapter of an annual India-Russia summit. After that, they are scheduled to meet business leaders, before attending a banquet thrown in Putin’s honour by Murmu, the Indian president. Earlier, the Kremlin said in a statement that Putin’s visit to India was “of great importance, providing an opportunity to comprehensively discuss the extensive agenda of Russian-Indian relations as a particularly privileged strategic partnership”. Putin will be joined by Andrei Belousov, his defence minister, and a wide-ranging delegation from business and industry, including top executives of Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, and reportedly the heads of sanctioned oil firms Rosneft and Gazprom Neft. Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greet each other before their meeting in New Delhi, India, on December 6, 2021. That was Putin’s last visit to India before the trip that starts on Thursday [Manish Swarup/AP Photo] Why is the timing of the visit significant? The visit comes as India and Russia mark 25 years of a strategic partnership that began in Putin’s first year in office as his country’s head of state. But even though India and Russia like to portray their relationship as an example of a friendship that has remained steady amid shifting geopolitical currents, their ties haven’t been immune to pressures from other nations. Since 2000, New Delhi and Moscow have had in place a system of annual summits: The Indian prime minister would visit Russia one year, and the Russian president would pay a return visit to India the following year. That tradition, however, was broken in 2022, the year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Modi was supposed to visit Russia for the summit, but the conclave was put off. In 2023, Putin skipped a visit to India for the G20 summit in New Delhi. At the time, Putin was rarely travelling abroad, largely because of an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against him related to the Ukraine war. India is not a member of the ICC – and so it would have been safe for Putin to attend, but Western members of the G20 made it clear that their leaders would be uncomfortable sharing the room with the Russian president. Advertisement Finally, in 2024, the annual summit resumed, with Modi visiting Russia. And now, Putin will land in New Delhi after four years. A Russian S-400 anti-missile system launcher moves along Tverskaya Street towards Red Square ahead of a Victory Day parade rehearsal in Moscow, Russia, April 29, 2025. India used S-400 systems during its May air war with Pakistan [Pavel Bednyakov/AP Photo] What’s on the agenda? Trade analysts and political experts expect Putin to push for India to buy more Russian missile systems and fighter jets, in a bid to boost defence ties and explore more areas to expand trade, including pharmaceuticals, machinery and agricultural products. The summit “offers an opportunity for both sides to reaffirm their special relationship amidst intense pressure on India from [US] President [Donald] Trump with punitive tariffs,” Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst for India at Crisis Group, a US-based think tank, told Al Jazeera. Putin, analysts said, will be seeking optical dividends from the summit. “President Putin can send a very strong message to his own people, and also to the international community, that Russia is not isolated in the world,” said Rajan Kumar, a professor of international studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “Russia is being welcomed by a democracy when Putin faces pressure for the war in Ukraine,” Kumar told Al Jazeera. But visuals aside, a key driver of the India-Russia relationship – oil trade – is now at risk. And that, along with the shadow of the man responsible for the disruption, will be hovering over talks, said experts. President Donald Trump greets Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska, August 15, 2025 [Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo] Is Trump

‘What’s our fault?’: India’s expulsion of Pakistanis still splits families

‘What’s our fault?’: India’s expulsion of Pakistanis still splits families

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – The silence of a narrow alley in Srinagar, the main city of Indian-administered Kashmir, is broken by the rehearsed beckoning of street vendors and the restless cries of two little children. “Auntie, please take me to my mother; the police took her away,” shouts three-year-old Hussein, as he and his sister Noorie, a year younger than him, cling to the window of their one-room house, their faces pressed against rusted iron bars. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Their father, Majid*, says the two have been calling out like that to almost every passer-by since their mother, Samina*, a Pakistani national, was forcibly taken away by Indian authorities and deported more than seven months ago. The family’s ordeal began a week after half a dozen gunmen, a couple of them alleged to be Pakistani nationals, stormed a scenic tourist spot in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam area and shot 26 people dead on April 22, 2025 in one of the worst attacks in the disputed region. The Muslim-majority region of Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, though the nuclear-armed neighbours claim it in full, while regional superpower China also controls a sliver of Kashmir’s land. Since India’s independence from British rule and its partition to create the state of Pakistan in 1947, the two countries have fought two of their three full-scale wars over Kashmir. In the late 1980s, an armed rebellion against New Delhi’s rule erupted on the Indian side, which has since claimed tens of thousands of lives, most of them civilians. The rebellion saw the deployment of nearly a million Indian soldiers, making it one of the world’s most militarised regions. The rebels aim to either carve an independent nation out of Kashmir or merge the region with Muslim-majority Pakistan. Advertisement The anti-India sentiments in Kashmir intensified in 2019 when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian government scrapped a law that granted the region partial autonomy in matters of land ownership and livelihoods, and split it into two “union territories” to be directly governed by New Delhi. Since then, suspected Kashmiri rebels have launched several attacks against Indian security forces and government employees. India accuses Pakistan of training and financing the rebels, but Islamabad dismisses the charge, claiming it only provides diplomatic backing to Kashmir’s struggle. India blamed Pakistan for the Pahalgam attack as well, and swiftly moved to downgrade all diplomatic ties, suspend bilateral trade, and place a key water treaty in abeyance. Two weeks after the killings, in early May, India and Pakistan engaged in an intense four-day air war, each striking the other’s military bases. Dozens of people were killed on both sides — India insists it only hit “terrorists” in Pakistan, while Islamabad said civilians were principally the victims — before the neighbours agreed to a ceasefire. But seven months later, the pause in fighting has meant little for hundreds of families, like Majid’s and Samina’s, that were broken apart by one of India’s moves. In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, India revoked all visas issued to Pakistani citizens residing in India, including medical and diplomatic visas, giving them an April 29, 2025 deadline to leave the country, and closing the Attari-Wagah border in Punjab province’s Amritsar district on May 1. Nearly 800 Pakistanis – many of them married to Indian nationals in Kashmir and other parts of India – were deported. With authorities providing no clarity on whether those families will ever be reunited, the wait drags on for relatives on both sides of the border. ‘I think of ending my life’ Majid married Samina, his 38-year-old Pakistani cousin, in 2018. Despite tense relations between their countries, their marriage was not especially rare. When millions of Muslims moved to a newly-created Pakistan in 1947 – as did Hindus to India – many left behind relatives on both sides of the border. Over the years, these blood ties gave rise to cross-border marriages between citizens of the two countries. But on April 28, Samina was summoned to the local police station in Srinagar’s Dalgate area. Noorie and Hussein slept on their laps as the couple met the police officer. When the children woke up, they realised their father had brought them back home, their mother no longer around. Advertisement Samina was detained at the police station and informed that she would be deported to Pakistan — she is originally from Lahore — the next day. Sitting quietly in a dimly lit room that served as a bedroom and kitchen, Majid said he is still struggling to process the events that turned his life upside down. Majid’s children looking out of the window of their one-room home [Arjumand Shaheen/Al Jazeera] He used to wait tables at a local restaurant and earned about $70 a month. But since his wife was taken away, he has not been able to leave his little children alone. He is now jobless. “I have not slept properly for six months now. My whole time is spent taking care of the children. I cannot think about doing anything else,” he told Al Jazeera. Confined to his room, Majid says he is unable to go out even to buy groceries. “Sometimes, I think of ending my life,” he said. “But I stop myself, wondering who would take care of them when I am gone.” Majid’s children, Hussein and Noorie, also do not know when they will be able to see their mother. “The sudden separation from Samina has traumatised them. They call out to their mother in sleep,” Majid told Al Jazeera as he made a futile attempt to distract his children by showing them cartoons on his mobile phone. “All they know is that the police took her away. Whenever they see any police or army officer, they ask them to bring their mother back.” Meanwhile, forcibly separated from her children, Samina is struggling with health issues in Pakistan. Her blood pressure is unstable due to stress. “She gets hospitalised every now and

Somalis call Trump’s comments insulting their country a ‘grave mistake’

Somalis call Trump’s comments insulting their country a ‘grave mistake’

NewsFeed Somalis are condemning recent comments made by US President Donald Trump calling their country a place where people ‘just run around killing each other’. Published On 4 Dec 20254 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share facebooktwitterwhatsappcopylink Save Adblock test (Why?)