Friend Modi's good advice

Friends planting trees together: Narendra Modi (center) with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping at the BRICS summit in New Delhi, September 12, 2026.

It is probably well known that male friendships can hardly be relied upon. Even a shared hobby is usually not enough for a halfway solid foundation. And not even that connects Russia's President Vladimir Putin and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which did not stop Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov from praising the personal relationship between the two statesmen and even calling them both "friends." On the Russian propaganda channel RT, he justified his choice of words by saying that both men shared the same worldview and respected each other.

At the Brics summit in New Delhi at the weekend, Modi wasn't the only one who shook hands with Putin. China's President Xi Jinping also arrived. At the end of August, Modi had already called on Putin to stop Russia's hostilities in Ukraine, and now he has reaffirmed his stance. Peskov said on Sunday that Modi and Xi had paid close attention to resolving the conflict and offered their services in search of solutions. This initiative was received positively in the Kremlin.

On the one hand, both China and India have benefited from Russian oil deliveries at preferential prices in recent years, but at the same time this creates risks for the relationship with the USA.

On the one hand, in recent years both China and India have benefited from Russian oil deliveries at preferential prices, as Russia can hardly find any other buyers due to Western sanctions. At the same time, this creates risks for the relationship with the USA. Just recently, the US Senate voted to tighten sanctions against Russia, imposing high punitive tariffs on the five main importers of Russian energy sources - China, India, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan. A vote in the House of Representatives is scheduled for this week, but it is unclear whether the proposal will receive a majority.

Midterm elections are scheduled to take place in the USA at the beginning of November, which promise an electoral defeat for the Republicans and could cost US President Donald Trump the majority in Congress. It may be that Trump is still hoping for a few demonstrable political successes by then and has therefore sent his negotiators to Moscow again to work towards ending Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.

According to the British newspaper Financial Times, a flying visit by CIA Director John Ratcliffe in August was intended to establish direct contact with Putin, which the Kremlin rejected. Ratcliffe had the opportunity to meet other high-ranking Russian officials, including the head of the FSB, Aleksandr Bortnikov. The content of the conversation is said to have been a pessimistic assessment by the USA of the situation on the front and the Russian economy, including a recommendation to reach an agreement with Ukraine sooner rather than later. Putin then refused to speak to the CIA director personally. Less than two weeks later, on September 5, US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Moscow, where they met the Russian president, and a day later to Kiev.

Lo and behold, the tone in the Kremlin suddenly began to change. While it had been said since the spring that the negotiation process had fallen asleep, there was now talk again of openness to discussion and the desire for negotiations. On Friday last week, Peskov even said that the start of negotiations was not subject to any preconditions. This is new, as the Kremlin has stubbornly insisted in recent months that talks only make sense after Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from areas claimed by Russia. Finally, on Sunday, the Russian leadership announced that consultations with the participation of the USA, Russia and Ukraine could take place again in October in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. There were already discussions in this constellation at the beginning of this year, most recently in Geneva in mid-February.

During an appearance at the Brics summit, the Russian president made it clear that if European countries sent troops to Ukraine, it would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia.

What came to nothing back then does not necessarily lead to success now; The starting point, however, is different. War damage as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory is increasing, as is the population's war weariness. As was shown in New Delhi, international pressure on Putin is also increasing, but above all, Russia's hopes for a successful summer offensive and significant gains in territory have not been fulfilled. Putin is still clinging to the completely unrealistic idea of being able to take over the entire Donbass by the end of the year. Given the course of the war, the Institute for the Study of War estimates that at the current pace, it would take Russia's armed forces until 2032 to take the contested Donetsk region. Currently, Russia controls only 81 percent of it, while the neighboring Luhansk region is almost entirely occupied by Russia.

Putin's rhetoric towards Ukraine's European allies remains the same. During an appearance at the Brics summit, the Russian president made it clear that if European countries sent troops to Ukraine, it would be tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia. A day later, on Sunday morning, a Russian drone attacked the locomotive of a passenger train traveling from Kiev to Warsaw shortly before the Polish border. Another train on which a German delegation had started its return journey from the Ukrainian capital also had to be evacuated. Attacks in the border area with Poland have long been part of everyday life.

Assurances can be heard almost daily from the Russian power apparatus that no further mobilization is planned. Putin himself also recently commented on this. Conscripts in particular are currently becoming increasingly nervous in anticipation of what could happen after the parliamentary elections at the weekend.