OddsFrontPutin arrives in New Delhi as India opens a BRICS summit dominated by the Iran and Ukraine wars
Modi is hosting leaders from Russia, Iran and China as conflict, energy security and the expanded bloc’s internal divisions test its capacity for collective action.
Leaders converge on New Delhi
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in New Delhi on September 11 for a two-day BRICS summit whose agenda is being shaped by the wars involving Iran and Ukraine. Al Jazeera reported that India’s Narendra Modi is due to hold talks with Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, while Chinese President Xi Jinping is also expected to meet Modi on the sidelines. The gathering brings several of the world’s largest non-Western economies together at a moment when armed conflict is disrupting energy supplies, trade routes and diplomatic alignments.
Putin’s arrival is itself a significant diplomatic signal. India has maintained a strategic relationship with Moscow and continued to treat Russia as an important energy partner despite the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, New Delhi has kept channels open with Kyiv. Ukraine’s presidency recorded the first standalone visit by an Indian foreign minister to Ukraine on September 3, when Volodymyr Zelensky and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar discussed peace efforts, security and bilateral cooperation.
Iran tests the expanded bloc
Iran’s participation gives the summit a second immediate fault line. Pezeshkian’s visit is the first by an Iranian president to India in eight years, according to Al Jazeera. The expanded BRICS membership now includes Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, governments with divergent security interests and different relationships with Washington and Israel. Their presence broadens the bloc’s reach but also makes consensus on the Middle East substantially harder.
The diplomatic context is especially difficult because the nuclear dispute remains unresolved. In a September 10 statement at the UN Security Council, Britain said a negotiated settlement remained the only durable solution to concerns surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme. That official position illustrates the continuing Western emphasis on safeguards and negotiations even as the wider war has made diplomacy more urgent and more politically costly.
What the summit can realistically deliver
The meeting will be watched for language on the Iran conflict, Ukraine and global energy security, but expectations for a unified position should remain restrained. Al Jazeera noted that BRICS foreign ministers failed to agree on a joint statement at their May meeting. India’s challenge is therefore to produce practical cooperation without allowing the summit to become paralysed by the members’ competing alliances and war aims.
Bilateral meetings may prove more consequential than the final declaration. Modi’s talks with Putin, Pezeshkian and Xi could clarify India’s role as an intermediary, its approach to energy disruption and the pace of its cautious rapprochement with China. The clearest test will be whether leaders announce completed agreements or a common diplomatic initiative, rather than limiting the summit to general appeals for stability and a more multipolar international order.