MOSCOW: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia on July 8 and 9, the Kremlin said Thursday, in his first trip to the country since Moscow launched its military offensive in Ukraine.

That campaign has tested relations between Moscow and New Delhi, even though India has ramped up its purchases of Russian oil and not joined Western sanctions.

Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin will discuss “prospects for further development of traditionally friendly Russian-Indian relations, as well as relevant issues on the international and regional agenda,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

Putin sees Modi as a key potential diplomatic and economy ally, with Russia isolated in the West.

But Ukraine has complicated ties.

In a September 2022 meeting between Putin and Modi at a regional summit in Uzbekistan, the Russian president told Modi he understood he had “concerns” about the conflict and that Modi wanted it to end “as soon as possible.”

Earlier this year, India said it was pushing Russia to release some of its citizens who had signed up for “support jobs” with the Russian army, following reports some were stranded in Russian border towns and forced to fight in Ukraine.

India urged its citizens to “stay away from this conflict.”

New Delhi has not been a staunch backer of Kyiv, notably declining to sign a joint statement at a peace summit in Switzerland last month that called for Ukraine’s territorial integrity to be respected in any peace agreement.

India has also become a major buyer of Russian oil, providing a much-needed export market for Russia after it was cut off from traditional markets in the West.

But there have been reports of payments problems and Russian exporters not being able to repatriate earnings due to India’s capital controls.

Recently re-elected for a historic third term, Modi last visited Russia in September 2019 for an India-Russia annual summit in the far eastern city of Vladivostok.

New Delhi: India seeks to increase efforts to resolve border issues with China, its top diplomat said on Thursday, as he met his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s summit in Kazakhstan.

The 10-member transregional economic and security body established by China and Russia, and comprising also Central Asian republics, India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus, held a two-day meeting of its heads of state in the Kazakh capital Astana on July 3-4.

All countries were represented by their leaders and top diplomats, except for India, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi skipped the summit. The Indian delegation was led by Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar.

Jaishankar and Chinese FM Wang Yi held talks on Thursday aiming to address the tensions that broke out between New Delhi and Beijing in 2020, following deadly clashes on their de facto Himalayan border known as the Line of Actual Control.

Both have since deployed thousands of troops to the area and downscaled engagements. Multiple talks aiming to resolve the standoff have not succeeded in normalizing the ties.

“Discussed early resolution of remaining issues in border areas. Agreed to redouble efforts through diplomatic and military channels to that end,” Jaishankar said in an X post after the meeting with Wang.

“The three mutuals — mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interest — will guide our bilateral ties.”

The spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the ministers “agreed to work toward stability in the border area and hold a new round of consultations on the border issue as soon as possible.”

She quoted Wang as saying that both countries, as representatives of the Global South, should work together to “safeguard the common interests of developing countries, and make due contributions to regional and world peace, stability and development.”

India and China have been unable to agree on their 3,500-km border since they fought a war in 1962.

Jaishankar and Wang’s meeting was the first high-level engagement between the countries since India’s election and the start of Modi’s third term last month.

“In that context, it is important to note that primarily the discussion seems to have revolved around addressing the standoff,” said Manoj Kewalramani, China studies fellow and chairperson of the Indo-Pacific studies program at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore.

“It is useful that the two foreign ministers met at the sidelines of the SCO summit. Maintaining channels of dialogue between the two sides is important. To that extent, it is good that this meeting took place.”

Kewalramani told Arab News that the presence of Chinese troops in the Ladakh area on the border was, however, posing a main obstacle to normalization.

“It does seem like Delhi will be unwilling to restore normalcy unless additional disengagement takes place. It would be strategically imprudent and politically difficult to do so,” he said.

“Unless there is a meaningful change in Chinese policies, it is very difficult for the Indian government to pursue normalization.”