Peskov announced it during a virtual briefing with Indian reporters on Tuesday. Nothing unusual about the format. Kremlin spokespeople confirm these visits all the time, usually a few lines, done. This one got more attention than most, mostly because of what's going on around it.
"We're looking forward to the President and Prime Minister having another bilateral meeting," Peskov said. He added that trade and economic cooperation would top the agenda, calling it "a very wide scope," and mentioned Russia's interest in bringing new countries into different BRICS formats. He also threw in a number Moscow likes repeating lately: close to 90 percent of Russia-BRICS transactions are now settled in national currencies instead of dollars.
Modi and Putin already met once recently, on August 31 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. The meeting happened at the Aksakal Meeting Room inside the Bishkek Ala Archa State Residence. Russian state media described the two exchanging a hug before sitting down, and Putin opened by saying ties between Moscow and New Delhi kept getting stronger. He says some version of that most times they meet, to be fair.
What's changed since Bishkek is everything happening in Washington.
The US has spent weeks pressuring India over its Russian oil purchases. Trump put a 25 percent tariff on Indian goods in late July. Then another 25 percent got added in August. That puts the total at 50 percent, officially tied to New Delhi buying discounted Russian crude and, according to Washington, reselling some of it in ways that keep money flowing to Moscow during the war in Ukraine.
India hasn't changed course, at least not in public. Officials keep repeating roughly the same line: energy decisions are about national interest, not outside pressure, and a country with 1.4 billion people needs cheap crude wherever it can get it. The chairman of Indian Oil Corporation said there's been no pause in Russian purchases, directly contradicting claims Trump has made.
Some of this looks a little backwards if you step back from it. Tariffs meant to isolate Russia seem to be pushing India closer to Moscow instead, and closer to Beijing too. Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping on that same Bishkek trip, and the two reportedly agreed to work through long-running border disputes.
BRICS still has its own agenda, tariffs aside. This is the group's 18th leaders' summit, marking 20 years since it was founded, with India chairing for the fourth time. Officials list trade, digital tech, energy security, finance, and global governance reform as talking points, which is fairly standard language for a gathering like this.
Nobody's said exactly what Friday's Modi-Putin meeting will produce. Past visits between the two have led to agreements on defense, energy, healthcare, trade, that sort of range. All that's confirmed right now is that the meeting is happening, and both governments seem to want it done before the summit's larger crowd shows up.
Putin's Delhi visit is expected to run a few days around the September 12 start date.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to New Delhi for the BRICS Summit on September 12 and 13, and will hold a separate bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 11. It's their second meeting in under two weeks, after talks in Bishkek on the sidelines of the SCO summit in late August. The visit comes as India faces steep US tariffs, now at 50 percent, over its continued purchases of Russian oil.
