Chicago – July 11, 2024
The optics of Vladimir Putin personally driving Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi around in a mini electric car at his residence show just how chummy the two leaders have become.
Modi’s controversial visit to Moscow — which coincided with Russia raining missiles down on a children’s hospital in Ukraine — is a sign that the West’s sanctions and attempts to isolate Putin over his war are having limited effect.
But the choice of an electric car to get around in petroleum-rich Russia has other connotations, too: The Modi-Putin relationship, which strengthened under US and European sanctions on Russian oil and gas, has now gone green. And nuclear.
Modi, who leads the world’s biggest democracy, has propped Putin up by making India one of a few loyal customers of Russian oil and gas throughout the two-year war in Ukraine. On Tuesday during Modi’s visit, Russian state news agency TASS reported that the countries were in talks for Russia to build six new high-powered nuclear reactors in India, as well as next-generation small nuclear power plants.
