Russian President Vladimir Putin will “definitely” attend the BRICS summit in India at the end of this year, TASS reported on Wednesday, citing Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Although the date of the summit has not been confirmed, TASS has previously quoted an Indian government source as noting that the BRICS summit is scheduled for 12-13. September.
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India to host 18th BRICS summit
According to reports, the theme of India’s BRICS chairmanship is ‘Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability’, reflecting the people-centric and humanity-centric approach as expressed by Prime Minister Modi at the 2025 Rio Summit.
Earlier, India hosted the 13th BRICS Summit on 9 September 2021 under the theme ‘BRICS @ 15: BRICS Cooperation for Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus’.
Putin will visit India for the second time in a year
The Russian president’s upcoming visit to India for the BRICS summit will be his second in a year, Hindustan Times reported. He had earlier visited New Delhi in December 2025 to attend the 23rd India-Russia Annual Summit at the invitation of Prime Minister Modi.
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During their visit, Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed their support for further strengthening the special and privileged strategic partnership between Moscow and Delhi.
India is hosting the first meeting of the BRICS Health Working Group today.
Earlier today, the Union Health Ministry chaired the first meeting of the 2026 BRICS Health Working Group (HWG), according to PTI.
According to a statement from the Ministry of Health, the meeting, held virtually, brought together senior health officials, technical experts and delegates from BRICS member countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia – to discuss priority areas of public health cooperation.
As the BRICS Chair for 2026, India is guided by the overarching theme of ‘Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability’, which reflects the people-centric approach expressed by the Prime Minister at the Rio Summit in 2025. This theme underscores India’s commitment to strengthening cooperative frameworks that are responsive, inclusive and future-ready, the statement said.
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Additionally, New Delhi highlighted the need to strengthen cooperation in joint research and development, equitable access to vaccines and medicines along with capacity building initiatives among BRICS member countries.
Union Health Minister Punya Salila Srivastava, who chaired the first meeting of the BRICS 2026 Framework Health Working Group (HWG) in New Delhi, noted that the recent engagements of the HWG have helped advance cooperation on critical health issues. These include addressing communicable and non-communicable diseases, strengthening health systems and expanding access to affordable medicines.
India will host the BRICS foreign minister level meeting in May
According to The Hindu newspaper, New Delhi will host a foreign minister-level meeting of the foreign ministers of the BRICS member countries in May. The meeting will be the first time officials from Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have met “face-to-face” since the Middle East conflict began in late February after the US and Israel waged war against Tehran.
Reports suggest that the discussions are likely to cover wider issues across West Asia and North Africa, including Palestine, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. However, the focus is expected to remain on the ongoing conflict and its implications for the Gulf countries, with Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia all part of the BRICS.
