MOSCOW (AP) — The Kremlin on Thursday said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia next Monday and Tuesday and hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The visit was first announced by Russian officials last month, but the dates have not been previously disclosed.
Russia has had strong ties with India since the Cold War, and New Delhi’s importance as a key trading partner for Moscow has grown since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China and India have become key buyers of Russian oil following sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies that shut most Western markets for Russian exports.
Under Modi’s leadership, India has avoided condemning Russia’s action in Ukraine while emphasizing the need for a peaceful settlement.
The partnership between Moscow and New Delhi has become fraught, however, since Russia started developing closer ties with India’s main rival, China, because of the hostilities in Ukraine.
Modi on Thursday skipped the summit of a security grouping created by Moscow and Beijing to counter Western alliances.
Modi sent his foreign minister to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at its annual meeting in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana. The meeting is being attended by Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Indian media reports speculated that the recently reelected Modi was busy with the Parliament session last week.
Modi last visited Russia in 2019 for an economic forum in the far eastern port of Vladivostok. He last traveled to Moscow in 2015. Putin last met with Modi in September 2022 at a summit of the SCO in Uzbekistan. In 2021, Putin also traveled to New Delhi and held talks with the Indian leader.
Tensions between Beijing and New Delhi have continued since a confrontation in June 2020 along the disputed China-India border in which rival troops fought with rocks, clubs and fists. At least 20 Indian troops and four Chinese soldiers were killed.
After his reelection to a third straight term. Modi attended the G7 meeting in Italy’s Apulia region last month and addressed artificial intelligence, energy, and regional issues in Africa and the Mediterranean.
In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union was the source of about 70% of Indian army weapons, 80% of its air force systems and 85% of its navy platforms.
India bought its first aircraft carrier, INS Vikramaditya, from Russia in 2004. It had served in the former Soviet Union and later in the Russian navy.
With the Russian supply line hit by the fighting in Ukraine, India has been reducing its dependency on Russian arms and diversifying its defense procurements, buying more from the U.S., Israel, France and Italy.
Sharma reported from New Delhi.
FILE- Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pose for a photo prior to their talks on a sideline of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, June 13, 2019. The Kremlin on Thursday, July 4, 2024 said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Russia on July 8-9 and hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Grigory Sysoyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE -Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pose for a photo shaking hands prior to their talks on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Sept. 16, 2022. The Kremlin on Thursday said Modi will visit Russia on July 8-9 and hold talks with Putin. The visit was first announced by the Russian officials last month, but the dates have not been previously disclosed. (Alexandr Demyanchuk, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)
PARIS (AP) — Voting has begun in mainland France on Sunday in pivotal runoff elections that could hand a historic victory to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and its inward-looking, anti-immigrant vision — or produce a hung parliament and years of political deadlock.
French President Emmanuel Macron took a huge gamble in dissolving parliament and calling for the elections after his centrists were trounced in European elections on June 9.
The snap elections in this nuclear-armed nation will influence the war in Ukraine, global diplomacy and Europe’s economic stability, and they’re almost certain to undercut President Emmanuel Macron for the remaining three years of his presidency.
The first round on June 30 saw the largest gains ever for the anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen.
A bit over 49 million people are registered to vote in the elections, which will determine which party controls the National Assembly, France's influential lower house of parliament, and who will be prime minister. If support is further eroded for Macron’s weak centrist majority, he will be forced to share power with parties opposed to most of his pro-business, pro-European Union policies.
Racism and antisemitism have marred the electoral campaign, along with Russian cybercampaigns, and more than 50 candidates reported being physically attacked — highly unusual for France. The government is deploying 30,000 police on voting day.
The heightened tensions come while France is celebrating a very special summer: Paris is about to host exceptionally ambitious Olympic Games, the national soccer team reached the semifinal of the Euro 2024 championship, and the Tour de France is racing around the country alongside the Olympic torch.
The elections wrap up Sunday at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) in mainland France and on the island of Corsica. Initial polling projections are expected Sunday night, with early official results expected late Sunday and early Monday.
Voters residing in the Americas and in France’s overseas territories of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana and French Polynesia voted on Saturday.
The elections could leave France with its first far-right government since the Nazi occupation in World War II if the National Rally wins an absolute majority and its 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella becomes prime minister. The party came out on top in the previous week's first-round voting, followed by a coalition of center-left, hard-left and Green parties, and Macron’s centrist alliance.
But the outcome remains highly uncertain. Polls between the two rounds suggest that the National Rally may win the most seats in the 577-seat National Assembly but fall short of the 289 seats needed for a majority. That would still make history, if a party with historic links to xenophobia and downplaying the Holocaust, and long seen as a pariah, becomes France’s biggest political force.
If it wins the majority, Macron would be forced to share power in an awkward arrangement known in France as "cohabitation."
Another possibility is that no party has a majority, resulting in a hung parliament. That could prompt Macron to pursue coalition negotiations with the center-left or name a technocratic government with no political affiliations.
Both would be unprecedented for modern France, and make it more difficult for the European Union’s No. 2 economy to make bold decisions on arming Ukraine, reforming labor laws or reducing its huge deficit. Financial markets have been jittery since Macron surprised even his closest allies in June by announcing snap elections after the National Rally won the most seats for France in European Parliament elections.
Regardless of what happens, Macron said he won’t step down and will stay president until his term ends in 2027.
Many French voters, especially in small towns and rural areas, are frustrated with low incomes and a Paris political leadership seen as elitist and unconcerned with workers' day-to-day struggles. National Rally has connected with those voters, often by blaming immigration for France's problems, and has built up broad and deep support over the past decade.
Le Pen has softened many of the party's positions — she no longer calls for quitting NATO and the EU — to make it more electable. But the party’s core far-right values remain. It wants a referendum on whether being born in France is enough to merit citizenship, to curb rights of dual citizens, and give police more freedom to use weapons.
Surk reported from Nice, France.
Follow AP’s global election coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/global-elections/
Local city officials prepare voting kits for the legislative election in Strasbourg, eastern France, on Saturday, July 6, 2024. Voters face a decisive choice in the runoff Sunday of snap parliamentary elections that could produce the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
Local city officials prepare voting kits for the legislative election in Strasbourg, eastern France, on Saturday, July 6, 2024. Voters face a decisive choice in the runoff Sunday of snap parliamentary elections that could produce the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron reacts as he delivers a speech, Wednesday, June 12, 2024 in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron's expected political failure in decisive parliamentary elections Sunday may paralyze the country, weaken him abroad and overshadow his legacy, just as France is about to be in the global spotlight as host of the Paris Olympics. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
FILE - Far-right National Rally party president Jordan Bardella, right, leaves with far-right leader Marine Le Pen after a press conference, Monday, June 24, 2024 in Paris. Both Le Pen and Bardella have made clear that, in power, they would seek to rein-in Macron and exert themselves in defense, European and foreign affairs decision-making. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
