December 15, 2025

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INDIA IS A MAJOR GLOBAL PLAYER AND CANNOT BE ARM-TWISTED

Russian President Vladimir Putin's long-delayed summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his first in four years, unfolds at a moment when US president Donald Trump is violently rearranging the global chessboard. A time when the world is sharply polarised by war, sanctions and shifting power centres, forcing nations to rethink old assumptions and quietly redraw their strategic maps. In this charged backdrop, Putin's India visit is far more than a routine bilateral; it is a signal, to the West and to the Global South, about where Moscow believes its long-term partners lie and for India to tell the US that it cannot be bullied into submission. Both sides look to reboot their relationshipIn a rare and exclusive interview to the India Today Group's TV team of Anjana Om Kashyap and Geeta Mohan at the Kremlin on the eve of his visit, Putin spoke for 100 minutes on a wide range of issues that went beyond India-Russia relations. The Russian president was by turns combative, didactic and unexpectedly warm, especially when speaking of India and Modi, whom he calls his "friend" and whose setting of "challenging tasks" for the nation he praises. For Putin, New Delhi is not just a legacy ally, but a central player in what he describes as the emerging power centres of the Global South: BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and a looser coalition of Asian and African economies that are reshaping trade, finance and technologyOn India­Russia relations, he says the future lies not just in defence, but as much in high-technology cooperation in nuclear energy, space, shipbuilding, aviation and, crucially, artificial intelligence. That's besides an ambitious agenda to correct trade imbalances, and not by diktat. Putin criticises western attempts to pressure India over discounted Russian oil and sanctions, arguing that some actors "dislike India's growing role in international markets" and are using political tools to distort fair competitionAsked about the Ukraine war, Putin cast the conflict as a defence of Russian-speaking populations, traditional values, language and the Orthodox Church. The "special military operation", he told the India Today TV team, is notthestartof a war, butan attemptto end one started "at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists aided by the West", and which will conclude only once Russia meets its goals of "liberating territories" and strengthening its security. NATO expansion, in his telling, remains the central strategic grievanceThe interview is also a rare insight into how Putin reads Trump's return and the West. He is dismissive of rejoining the G8, sceptical of the continued centrality of the G7, and more interested in alternative platforms where India and China sit at the high table. On India­ China tensions, Putin treads a careful line. He calls both countries Russia's "closest friends", says he has no right to interfere, but stresses that Modi and Xi Jinping are applying "maximum effort" to manage disputes and that their "wisdom" is ensuring that tensions do not derail a broader Asian rebalancingThroughout the interaction, Putin appeared in full command, with a swag in the manner that he walked and spoke. He was extremely gracious and charming too. Despite being quizzed for over an hour and a half, he agreed to an informal discussion with the India Today Group Editorial Team and answer their questions. Edited excerpts of the interview:

THE NEW BATTLE FRONTS

THE CELEBRATIONS WERE UNDER WAY at the BJP head-quarters in New Delhi on Novem-ber 14 after the landslide victory in the Bihar election and, as is the convention by now, Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi was there to address party workers. After the customary messages of congratulation, the PM employed his usual oratorial flourish to declare: “The Ganga flows from Bihar to Bengal.” The message was clear: carry the momentum eastward and prepare for what BJP insiders are calling “the mother of all assembly polls”. West Bengal, along with Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, is scheduled to go for assembly polls in April-May next year. At the BJP headquarters, the mood is upbeat. The confidence comes, as a top party leader explains, because the back-to-back victories in the states have reaffirmed that the Modi-Amit Shah model—tight control, focused messaging and relentless preparation—combined with the leave-no-stone-unturned groundwork of the Sangh Parivar, is near-unstoppable. As a prelude to election preparations, the restructuring of state units is likely to be completed by year-end. Sources say new chiefs for the Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Haryana and Delhi units will be announced soon, while Punjab and Jharkhand—currently under working presidents—will get full-time leaders as well. The objective is to harvest