Putin’s visit to New Delhi did not signal a return to Cold War nostalgia or a departure from the West; it was India reminding the world that its strategic autonomy is intact

By Geetartha Pathak

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrival in New Delhi on 4-5 December 2025 for the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit marked his first bilateral visit since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The optics followed a familiar choreography — a private dinner, wreath-laying at Rajghat, restricted talks, and multiple agreements on nuclear energy, shipping, aviation, and artificial intelligence. Yet behind this ritualised warmth lay a far more complex strategic moment. What unfolded in Delhi was not a replay of Soviet-era camaraderie but an exercise in hard realism as the world enters an era of fractured geopo

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