Russia's Putin, India's Modi to discuss trade, food supplies

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet in Uzbekistan on Friday and discuss trade as well as sales of Russian fertilizers and mutual food supplies, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

“There are plans to discuss issues of ‘saturation’ of the Indian market with Russian fertilizers and bilateral food supplies,” it said in its handout of materials for the meeting.

The meeting will be held on the sidelines of a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a regional security bloc.

India stands by trade with Russia despite Ukraine war 

Despite Western pressure, India has not condemned Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, instead calling for a diplomatic solution to the crisis and an end to violence. Russia has for decades been India’s biggest foreign supplier of defence hardware.

India’s crude oil shipments from Russia have jumped to between 12% and 13% of imports from all sources since February from about 2% before then, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

India is the world’s third-biggest consumer and importer of crude oil, and Sitharaman said Prime Minister Narendra Modi deserved credit for balancing trade and other ties with various countries.

Indian government ministers have repeatedly said the country needed to keep buying energy from Russia to keep inflation under check.