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Putin assures India of fuel, fertilisers amid disruptions over West Asia crisis
Jaishankar said PM Modi hopes that President Vladimir Putin would attend the Brics Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13
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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday assured India of supplies of energy and fertilisers amid disruptions caused by the West Asia conflict, even as external affairs minister S Jaishankar highlighted the need to address the growing imbalance in two-way trade that has soared to $50 billion.
Putin’s expected meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Kyrgyzstan this month and on the sidelines of the Brics Summit in New Delhi in September figured in a meeting between the Russian leader and Jaishankar in Moscow. Jaishankar is in Russia to co-chair a meeting of the Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC).
Putin pointed out that bilateral trade has increased this year, after declining slightly in 2025, and said Russia is increasing fertiliser supplies to India. He noted that any important issues had figured in the IRIGC-TEC meeting and said: “One of these issues is not only energy – it is, of course, the supply of fertilisers…We are doing everything to resolve this issue for Indian farmers, for agriculture. We are increasing these supplies and are ready to do so further.”
The two sides are also making progress on cooperation in nuclear energy and high-tech, Putin said.
Jaishankar said Modi hopes Putin will attend the Brics Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13. “Prime Minister Modi looks forward to meeting you at the SCO Summit and also hopes that you will have the opportunity to come to the Brics Summit and host this annual summit,” Jaishankar was quoted as saying by state-run TASS news agency.
He also handed over a personal message from Modi to Putin. People familiar with the matter said Putin is expected to attend the Brics Summit, along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The summit is expected to focus on global economic and political challenges, and expanding multilateral cooperation among Brics member states.
While co-chairing the IRIGC-TEC meeting with Russia’s first deputy prime minister Denis Manturov, Jaishankar pointed out that a more than four-fold increase in bilateral trade in goods — from $13 billion in 2021-22 to nearly $60 billion in 2025-26 — had been “accompanied by a significant widening of the trade imbalance” from $6.6 billion to more than $50 billion.
“Addressing this imbalance is today one of our foremost priorities. Progress on market access, removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, strengthening payment mechanisms and stronger business-to-business engagement will be critical for addressing this imbalance and achieving our shared objective of $100 billion in bilateral trade by 2030,” Jaishankar said at the start of the meeting.
Jaishankar made three proposals for the next phase of the India-Russia economic partnership – focusing on implementation and outcomes to prioritise deliverables and solving problems, strengthening engagement with businesses by aligning institutional mechanisms with industry priorities, identifying bottlenecks and improving policy responses, and exploring new possibilities to address the needs of de-risking and diversifying.
The discussions between Jaishankar and Manturov also encompassed cooperation in trade, investments, energy, fertilisers, nuclear energy, connectivity, technology, space and mobility of professionals. The two sides also reviewed the progress in discussions between India and the Eurasian Economic Union on a free trade agreement.
Manturov said Rosatom’s involvement in building the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu could be the basis for expanding cooperation in nuclear energy, including the “creation of new power generation facilities in India, including small-scale ones, as well as the localisation of equipment and nuclear fuel production”.
Russia also sees potential for new joint projects in the extraction and processing of non-ferrous and rare earth metals, Manturov said. Russia and India are also discussing cooperation in space exploration, including manned spaceflight, rocket propulsion and satellite navigation, he said.
The prototype of a high-speed electric train jointly produced by India and Russia will be assembled by the end of the year, after which serial production is expected to begin, Manturov announced at the meeting. “Within this framework, the flagship project in transport engineering — the development and production of the Vande Bharat electric trains — is systematically developing,” he said.
In March 2023, a consortium led by Russia’s Transmashholding won a $6.5-billion tender for the development, production and 35-year service of 1,920 Vande Bharat electric train cars.
Manturov also prioritised cooperation in energy security, including the supply of oil, petroleum products and coal, as well as joint investment projects in hydrocarbon production and processing. Russia is currently among the top two suppliers of energy to India.
Russian energy minister Sergei Tsivilev described India as a key partner for the country’s fuel and energy sector, while deputy prime minister Alexander Novak noted that Moscow is interested in Indian investments in the Russian oil and gas sector, and developing a distribution network involving Russian companies in India.
Manturov also noted that tourist flows between Russia and India had increased by 8% in the first half of 2026, with more than 25,000 Indian tourists visiting Russia. Around 50,000 Russians also visited India, he said. Referring to labour migration, he said Russia and India are focusing on expanding the legal framework to create stable and transparent conditions for attracting workers.
The number of Indian students in Russia has also grown to almost 40,000, Manturov said. Support for talented children and youth can be a new vector of cooperation between the two countries, he added.
