Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping likely to be in New Delhi for BRICS summit in September

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are likely to attend the summit of BRICS leaders in New Delhi in September a report in Indian Express said on 20 May.

The Russian and the Chinese sides have conveyed to New Delhi that the leaders are likely to come for the summit, the report said.

India, as the chair of the BRICS, will host the annual summit of the grouping in September.

Putin will also attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on 31 August and 1 September. Prime Minister Narendra Modi too is likely to attend the SCO summit.

Xi’s visit to New Delhi, if confirmed, would be Chinese president’s first trip to India after October 2019 when he was at Mamallapuram near Chennai for the second informal summit of India-China leaders.

The agenda of the upcoming visits was discussed at the meeting of BRICS Foreign Ministers in New Delhi last week, the Indian Express report said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attended the New Delhi meeting but Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi could not attend since he had to be in Beijing where President Xi hosted US President Donald Trump. China’s Ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, attended the meeting on Wang’s behalf.

BRICS, originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, expanded in 2024 to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, with Indonesia joining in 2025.

The BRICS has emerged as an influential grouping as it brings together 11 major emerging economies of the world, representing around 49.5 per cent of the global population, around 40 per cent of the global GDP and around 26 per cent of the global trade.

The meeting is expected to see discussions on bilateral and international issues, capped by an intimate tete-a-tete between "old friends" over tea.

Coming on the heels of US President Donald Trump's visit to the Chinese capital, the optics and outcomes of the meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be closely scrutinised and compared.

Xi is known for hosting visiting leaders over tea, but the setting and manner of such encounters can be viewed as a signal of the Chinese leader's regard for his guest.

Putin, who has called Xi a "dear friend" and been labelled an "old friend" by the Chinese leader, arrives at a time when bilateral trade is improving after a downturn last year. Two-way trade rose 16.1% in the first four months of this year over the same period in 2025 in value terms.

Trade between China and Russia was worth 1.63 trillion yuan ($240 billion) in 2025, down 6.5% from a record in 2024 and marking the first decline in five years.

(With PTI inputs)