Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar in Moscow on August 24, at the conclusion of the latest meeting of the Intergovernmental Russia-India Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation, co-chaired by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov and Jaishankar.
Jaishankar handed Putin “a personal communication” from Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the meeting, and both Putin and Jaishankar confirmed that the Indian and Russian heads of state will soon meet again on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, which will be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Aug. 31–Sept. 1.
The meeting with Putin was clearly to be a working meeting, as he was accompanied by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Manturov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin, and Aide to the President Yury Ushakov, the Kremlin reported.
In their brief public exchange opening the meeting, President Putin spoke of the high level of relations between their two countries, achieved “by working together at the government level, forging closer inter-parliamentary ties and among economic operators.” Trade between their two countries has increased this year, Putin said, crediting this improvement (it had declined slightly in 2025) to Modi’s “commitment to keeping a close eye on the development of Russia-India relations.” Our countries have an agenda far beyond just energy supplies, he noted, citing nuclear energy and cooperation in high technology and other sectors. He also mentioned, in particular, fertilizer shipments from Russia to India, where he said “we are doing everything to resolve this issue for Indian farmers and for the country’s agricultural sector.”
Jaishankar concurred that economic cooperation between their nations “has grown very significantly,” and that in the meeting he would receive a report “on trade, energy, fertilizers, nuclear and other dimensions, in detail.”
