New Delhi: President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will arrive in New Delhi on Monday evening for the 21st Indo-Russia annual summit.
During the summit, the leaders will review the bilateral relations and discuss ways to further strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries. The summit will also allow exchanging views on regional, multilateral and international issues of mutual interest.
India and Russia are also likely to sign more than 10 bilateral agreements, including connectivity, shipping, space, military-technical cooperation, science and technology, education and culture.
It is pertinent to note that the two countries are expected to ink the deal on supplying 7.5 lakh AK-203 assault rifles. On Saturday, the Centre has approved the manufacturing of AK-203 rifles at a factory in Uttar Pradesh, a joint venture between India and Russian Rifles Private Limited.
Apart from that, as informed by the Ministry of External Affairs, the bilateral summit will see a major focus on the delivery of the S-400 missile defence systems and other defence agreements.
Simultaneously, India and Russia will hold a dialogue that will see a meeting between the External Affairs and Defence Ministers of both the countries in the morning. Both ministers are expected to discuss bilateral, regional, international political and defence issues.
The last India-Russia annual summit was held in September 2019 during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Vladivostok (Russia). The annual summit could not take place in 2020 due to the Covid.
This will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders after their meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Brasilia in November 2019.
There have been six telephonic conversations between the two leaders since November 2019 till date apart from virtual meetings for multilateral summits. The visit is in continuation of the tradition of annual summits in India and Russia. The visit will provide further impetus to the Indo-Russia special and privileged strategic partnership
Also read: India, Russia to establish a '2+2 ministerial dialogue' between foreign, defence ministers
