PM Modi phones Putin, appreciates his ‘personal contribution’ to deepen ties

Russia has offered India winter clothing and Sprut light weight tanks with a T-90 barrel for Ladakh stand-off, people familiar with the matter said.

Updated on: Oct 9, 2020, 17:55:01 IST

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By Shishir Gupta

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Although Russia wants India and China to bilaterally resolve the Ladakh military stand-off, President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintain a close personal relationship that is the bedrock of bilateral Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.

Prime Minister Narendra Mod has told Putin that India he is looking forward to receive the Russian leader as soon as the public health situation becomes normal. (Sonu Mehta/HT PHOTO)

On Wednesday, PM Modi called up President Putin to wish him 68th birthday, just as the latter phoned PM Modi to wish him on his 70th birthday on September 17. In a tweet, PM Modi later said he appreciated Putin’s “immense personal contribution” to strengthening the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two counries. Among others who congratulated President Putin on his birthday were leaders of Israel, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Moldova, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

It is interesting to note that while Russia and China have an economic and security relationship, the personal touch between President Putin and President Xi Jinping has been missing from both sides.

According to diplomats based in Moscow and New Delhi, while Russia has offered India winter clothing and Sprut light weight tanks with a T-90 barrel for Ladakh stand-off, there are reports that Moscow has delayed the supply of the second S-400 surface to air missile system ostensibly on account of the coronavirus pandemic. China has contracted to buy four S-400 systems from Russia, the first one has already been deployed near Nyingchi across Arunachal Pradesh.

India has a deal to buy 5 S-400 systems from Russia, deliveries of which are likely to begin at the end of next year. The order of additional Su-30 MKI and MiG-29 fighters to replenish the reserve are already on schedule.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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