NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not hold an annual in-person summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin this year due to his veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war, Bloomberg News reported yesterday, citing sources.
Modi and Putin met in September on the sidelines of a regional security bloc summit in Uzbekistan and have spoken on the phone a number of times this year, including on the subject of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
India, which has become the second largest buyer of Russian oil after China and is seeking to narrow a ballooning trade deficit with Moscow, has not explicitly condemned what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
