Vladimir Putin may visit India in first half of 2021, says Russian envoy Nikolay Kudashev

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was scheduled to visit India in 2020, might visit country during first six months of next year, Nikolay Kudashev, Russia’s ambassador to India said on December 21. Speaking to Sputnik, Russian diplomat stated that although coronavirus pandemic has scaled down frequency of face to face meetings, Russo-India dialogue still remains intense. Putin was scheduled to visit India in October but despite colossal preparations, his visit was postponed due to COVID-19.  

"It became more difficult to maintain contacts due to pandemic. It has affected frequency of face-to-face meetings, but Russian-Indian political and ecomic dialogue has t become less intense. Summits are highest point of dialogue. summit was due to be held in October. re have been large-scale preparations, but it has been decided by mutual agreement to postpone meeting until next year. When will meeting take place? sooner better. I hope we will receive Russian president in India in first half of coming year," ANI quoted Kudashev as saying.

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Free Trade Zone

Kudashev also revealed possibility of a free trade zone to be established between India and Eurasian Ecomic Union. In addendum to Russia, EAEU includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. Apart from ecomic deals, ambassador said that a convention on military deal could also be convened during early 2021. 

"If we talk about which documents and agreements were decisive for trade and ecomic nda and which agreements and documents need to be formalized next year, n I would probably mention following -- well, first of all, re is an interesting agreement on formalizing a deal on a free trade zone between India and EAEU ... Several rounds of technical negotiations took place," said ambassador.

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