Xi Arrives in Delhi for BRICS; Modi Presses Putin on Ukraine — SkimNews
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- Xi Jinping landed in New Delhi on September 12 for the 18th BRICS Summit — his first India visit since 2019, following the deadliest border clash in over four decades at Galwan Valley in 2020.
- Modi met Putin on the summit's eve and again urged an end to the Ukraine war, with India's foreign ministry describing the conflict as 'conflicts in the Black Sea region' — language that softens Russia's framing.
- Iranian President Pezeshkian met Modi — the first Iranian presidential visit to India in over eight years — and told the summit Iran is under 'critical, dangerous' US economic pressure from sanctions and military aggression.
- Modi called for protecting maritime trade routes amid competing US and Iranian blockades of the Strait of Hormuz, as India balances ties with Tehran, Israel, and the Gulf.
- Putin accused Western countries of trying to reclaim 'former leadership' by destroying facilities and pipelines and seizing vessels, speaking at the BRICS business forum.
- BRICS has expanded to 11 members and partners representing roughly 3.7 billion people and close to 40% of global GDP, but India was forced to issue a chair statement instead of a consensus because members could not agree on language covering Iran and Ukraine.
Why it matters: India's failure to secure consensus language on Iran and Ukraine at the very summit meant to project unity reveals the bloc's widening internal contradictions as it grows to 11 members covering ~40% of global GDP. Modi's parallel moves — pressing Putin on Ukraine while hosting Iran's leader under US sanctions and welcoming Xi's first visit since the 2020 Galwan clash — show how aggressively New Delhi is stretching its multi-alignment strategy to keep BRICS functional without becoming an anti-Western platform.
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