Though the West continued to pressure India to distance itself from Moscow, New Delhi refused. Russia, for its part, has continued to back India.
All these happening when China is also trying to deepen its grip over Eurasia.
For Russia, weapons sales to India are another priority and have been since Soviet times. India plans to purchase state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets and air defence systems. Russia, hit by a labour shortage, also sees India as a valuable source of skilled workers.
There's geopolitics.
The Kremlin enjoys demonstrating that Western efforts to isolate it over the war in Ukraine have failed. Flying to India and meeting Prime Minister Modi is one way of doing that.
So is travelling to China and holding talks with Xi Jinping, as Putin did three months ago. He met Modi on the same trip.
The image of the Putin, Xi Jinping and India smiling and chatting together sent a clear message that, despite the war in Ukraine, Moscow has powerful allies who support the concept of a "multi-polar world".
Russia has said that every independent nation should be free to choose its own trading partner. Indeed, Putin just last month praised India’s decision to resist the West’s entreaties not to buy Russian crude as “self-reliant and dignified”.
New Delhi too has pointed to the hypocrisy of the West, particularly America, which continues to have its own dealings with Russia in the aftermath of the Ukraine war.
PM Narendra Modi - despite coming under intense pressure from Western governments to criticise Russia over its war in Ukraine, has always maintained that dialogue was the only way to resolve the conflict.
This was India's "strategic autonomy" at play – with Modi occupying a particular place in the geopolitical order where he held close ties with Moscow while maintaining his relationship with the West at the same time. That worked - until Donald Trump returned to the White House in 2025.
India-US ties have hit an all-time low in recent months as the two countries have failed to resolve the tariff deadlock.
For both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Putin, the significance of the meeting may also be beyond trade figures or defence contracts.
A message to the world, that despite turbulence, the old Moscow-Delhi axis still holds considerable value and weight.
The visit comes at a time when the world’s geopolitical compass is spinning fast and furiously, says 'First Post'.
The US tightening sanctions against Moscow,
China trying to deepen its grip over Eurasia and
India positioning itself as the swing state in an increasingly bipolar order.
"I think the Kremlin is sure that the West, including Europe, totally failed," believes Novaya Gazeta columnist Andrei Kolesnikov.
"We are not isolated, because we have connections to Asia and the Global South. Economically, this is the future. In that sense Russia returned as the main actor in these parts of the globe, like the Soviet Union. But even the Soviet Union had special channels and connections to the US, West Germany and France. It had a multi-vector policy.
"But now we are totally isolated from Europe. This is unprecedented. Our philosophers always said that Russia was a part of Europe. Now we're not. This is a big failure and a big loss. I'm sure that part of Russia's political and entrepreneurial class is dreaming of returning to Europe and of doing business not only with China and India." This week, though, expect to hear about Russia-India friendship, trade deals and increased economic cooperation between Moscow and Delhi.
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