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12-08-2025
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone and thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine.
The conversation between the two leaders came days after U.S. President Donald Trump announced an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods to penalise New Delhi for continuing to buy Russian oil.
The penalty took the total levy on Indian goods exported to the U.S. to 50%, among the highest levied on any U.S. trading partner.
“Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine,” Modi said in a post on X.
India’s foreign ministry said Modi invited Putin to New Delhi for the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit later this year.
The two leaders “reaffirmed their commitment to further deepen the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia,” the ministry said in a statement.
Modi also spoke with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by phone on Thursday, discussing a broad range of topics that included high tariffs imposed by the U.S. Trade talks between India and the United States collapsed after five rounds of negotiations over disagreement on opening India’s vast farm and dairy sectors and stopping Russian oil purchases.
Modi’s conversation with Putin also came a day after Russia and India stressed their commitment to a “strategic partnership” in bilateral security talks in Moscow between Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Sergei Shoigu, secretary of Russia’s Security Council.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to the leaders of China, India and three ex-Soviet states on Friday in a flurry of calls to brief them on his contacts with the United States about the war in Ukraine.
Putin met U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow on Wednesday, after which the Kremlin said a summit between Putin and Trump could take place as early as next week. No venue, date or agenda have been announced.
Trump, pressing for an end to the 3-1/2-year war, had set a deadline that expires on Friday for Russia to agree to peace or face new sanctions on Moscow and countries that buy Russian exports. China and India are the biggest buyers of Russian oil.
China’s President Xi Jinping told Putin in a phone call that China is pleased to see Russia and the United States maintaining contact and improving ties to advance a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.
China is a major backer of Russia in its confrontation with the West, as well as Russia’s biggest trading partner. Putin is due to visit China in September for events marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.
The Kremlin said that Putin also discussed his talks with Witkoff with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Trump this week announced an additional 25% tariff on Indian goods to penalise New Delhi for its purchases of Russian oil.
“Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine,” Modi said in a post on X.
On Thursday Putin spoke with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who expressed South Africa’s “full support to peace initiatives that will end the war and contribute to a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.”
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, met Putin in Moscow on Thursday and Putin said the UAE was a possible venue for the Russia-U.S. summit.
