Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi ahead of the two-day 18th BRICS summit, where he is due to hold talks involving India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is also attending, his first visit to India since 2019, marking a cautious thaw after their 2020 Himalayan clash even as deep mistrust and a widening trade deficit persist. The expanded 11-member BRICS now includes Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and analysts say the Gulf war and the wider Middle East conflict are the summit’s central fault line. India has pushed to keep BRICS broad enough to avoid taking sides, while China sees the group as a vehicle for challenging American power. Observers note the grouping’s cohesion will be tested after BRICS foreign ministers failed to agree a joint statement in May. Delhi mounted heavy security deployments and citywide traffic restrictions for the summit, and participants say the outcome could shape whether BRICS issues a joint stance on the Iran and Ukraine wars. India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar recently visited Kyiv, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly thanked India for its commitment to ending the war in Ukraine.
