Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin today held annual summit talks here with a particular focus on stepping up cooperation in defence and nuclear energy besides facilitating Indian companies’ participation in Russia’s oil and gas sector.

The 16th India-Russia Summit at the Kremlin began with a restricted meeting between the two leaders after which Modi and Putin were joined by their respective delegations.

“I am pleased to note, and I am happy to do that, that we are consistently and confidently developing the privileged strategic partnership between India and Russia,” Putin said in his opening remarks during his meeting with Modi, who is here on a two-day visit.

Ways to expand economic cooperation between the two countries were also explored in the meeting with both countries aiming to take the current bilateral annual trade of $10 billion to $30 billion in the next 10 years.

Russia is keen to enhance economic cooperation with India. Putin has been making concerted efforts to push the economic growth which witnessed significant slowdown following Western sanctions after the Ukrainian crisis.

To ensure deeper economic engagement, India is pushing for a Free Trade Agreement with the Eurasian Economic Zone and is sharing with Russia details of a study it conducted in this regard.

The two sides have been working on a number of defence deals and they are understood to have figured in the talks.

There were indications that Russia was ready to ensure transfer of technology for some of the joint ventures in the defence sphere.

The deals being talked about include joint manufacture of Kamov-226T helicopters.

Last week, the Defence Ministry’s top acquisition council had cleared the purchase of Russian S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems at an estimated cost of ₹40,000 crore.

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