Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to India on Dec. 6 for his first in-person summit in two years with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “They will review the state and prospects of bilateral relations and discuss ways to strengthen the strategic partnership between the countries,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said Nov. 26.
The Times of India reported that the “highlight” of the visit will be the delivery of Russia’s state-of-the-art S-400 missile defense system, whose components have already started arriving in India. “Delivery of the first squadron is scheduled to be completed by December,” the Times noted, adding: “The U.S. could impose sanctions against India for engaging in transactions with the Russian sectors.”
The Putin-Modi summit has been in preparation all year, and it is of great strategic significance. The S-400 deal will in fact incur the wrath of the U.S. and Britain, in part because it signals that India is only willing to go so far in its marriage to the Indo-Pacific Quad alliance of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India—which from the outset has been a British geopolitical maneuver to contain China. What London and Washington most fear is that the Putin-Modi summit could play a useful role in helping India get on track for in-depth cooperation with China’s Belt and Road Initiative—following, as it does, on the heels of the RIC (Russia-India-China) foreign ministers meeting on Nov. 26, which showed progress in the direction of triangular cooperation.
